i think we've -- senator merkley has been waiting.hat we're now moving into is a domain that is not the parameters of in this hearing. though this senator will not inhibit any senator from asking any question they want. i want to remind the senators that tomorrow in the feinstein hearing many of these can be filed, and i hope it's a learning experience that when you go to feinstein, your questions will even be, you know, as cogent and comprehensive as they are here today. so, senator merkley, we're going to turn to you now. >> thank you very much, madam chair. and thank you, general. and you referred to section 215, and 215 requires for an application for production of any tangible thing. and it says in it that this application must have a statement of facts showing reasonable grounds that the tack bl things -- tangible things sought are relevant to an authorized investigation. so we have several standards of law embedded in this application; a statement of facts, reasonable grounds, tangible things that are relevant the an authorized

merkley: thank you, madam president. madam president, i rise to talk about an issue that is important to many oregonians, section 735 of the continuing resolution, also known as the monsanto protection act. i appreciate this opportunity to engage in a dialogue about it with senator stabenow who as the chair is doing a magnificent job guiding this farm bill through the senate. the monsanto protection act refers to a policy rider that the house slipped into the recently passed continuing resolution and sent over to the senate. because of the time urgent consideration of this must-pass legislation, necessary to avert a government shutdown, this policy rider slipped through without examination or debate. that outcome is unfortunate and unacceptable because the content of the policy rider is nothing short of astounding. it allows the unrestricted sale and variants of genetically modified seeds that a court rules have not been properly examined for their effect on the farmers and human health. and impact on human farmers can b

merkley: thank you, mr. president. colleagues, let me take you back in time to 2009-2010. the housing market had collaps collapsed, sawmills had shut down across our nation and thousands of loggers and sawmill workers were out of work. you can -- the presiding officer: may we have order. please take your conversations outside the chamber. thank you. mr. merkley: you can imagine how outraged those unemployed loggers were when they found out that government contracts had been let for logging but the contracts were going to go to employees coming from mexico. that is the type of bypass that completely disturbs the fabric of our immigration system and it undercut the success of thousands of rural families across this nation. this amendment has a simple fix. it says that jobs have to be appropriately advertised so that our loggers will know how to apply. that's it. it will work for rural america, it will work for the forest industry, it will work for our loggers. and, mr. president, i understand that we're able to dispose of this amendment with a voice vote. i ask unanimous con

i think senator merkley's on the right track. there's two issues here.his is what i think is important to make the distinction. one is if the government's going to be having this massive data bank of your telephone calls and mine and your e-mails and mine, that's not a particularized focus of the investigation. there's no reason it has to be secret. that should be disclosed by the administration and slould be debated in public and people should make a decision about the trade-off. that's something i think should be in public and discussed. also some of these opinions, if we don't see what the opinions are, we have no clue as to what's going on. in fact, i think there should be much more openless. the other point is when there's a particular investigation focused on an individual because there's probable cause to thing they may be up to something bad, that has to be secret and we have to maintain that in order for them to have a shot at being successful, but that's the distinction that's not being made now between an oversized policy and a particular inve

secret so domestic spying in america is quite literally based on a secret law oregon senator jeff merkley in a democracy understanding how a statute is interpreted is essential to the conduct of our responsibility in forging forging laws and ensuring that the constitutional vision is protected to put an end to secret law senator merkley introduced legislation this week to require the attorney general to quote declassify significant foreign intelligence surveillance court opinions allowing americans to know how broad of a legal authority the government is claiming to spy on americans that legislation has co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle and will be taken up by the senate judiciary committee meanwhile off the hill several organizations have taken up similar fights the a.c.l.u. filed a motion this week to force the pfizer court to reveal its legal opinion behind granting the verizon warrant the electronic frontier foundation has been fighting since two thousand and twelve to declassify certain fi's a court opinions but it shouldn't be this difficult senior obama administration official

joining us for the interview is senator jeff merkley of oregon, the lead sponsor of that legislation. senator, thank you very much for being back with us tonight. i appreciate your time. >> you bet, rachel. good to be with you. >> did i essentially explain that right, that this is not about the secrecy of the operation of the program, it's about the secrecy of the law that says what the program can do? >> yes. because the plain language of the law is public, and it sets standards. it says there has to be tangible things, has to be a statement of facts. there has to be information relevant to an authorized investigation. those are standards. but what we're seeing in practice is a program that is all phones, all hours of the night and day, all parts of the country. in other words, a blanket dragnet sucking up all cell phone data in america. that doesn't seem to fit with the standard. so what's in between? what's in between is the interpretation of a secret court. you don't have any idea who advocated for the government's position or was anyone advocating on the other side to say, wait,

senator graham doing that and senator chambliss and senator merkley saying this is a real problem and rand paul saying this is a major problem. you had everybody in the middle. members of the intelligence committee, dianne feinstein who has to say it's okay because she's known about this and not just known about it, senator wyden has known about it and complained. she's known about it and done nothing as the leader of the intelligence community. she has to say that. >> one of the things we've seen throughout the post 9/11 era the oversight communities haven't been in line with the intelligence community. brenda and spencer ackerman having a bang-up first day on the jab at the guardian. >>> a tea party hero who sued the federal government over obama-care is doing everything she can to save obama-care in her state. i'll tell you about the latest red state reversal next. >>> coming up next, everyone remembers this famous picture. now arizona governor jan brewer is giving a different finger to her own republican legislature. i'll tell you why. >>> a film with so many jaw dropping revelati

senator graham doing that and senator chambliss and senator merkley saying this is a real problem and rand paul saying this is a major problem. you had everybody in the middle. members of the intelligence committee, dianne feinstein who has to say it's okay because she's known about this and not just known about it, senator wyden has known about it and complained. she's known about it and done nothing as the leader of the intelligence community. she has to say that. >> one of the things we've seen throughout the post 9/11 era the oversight committees in the senate and the house have been in line with the intelligence community on these issues. brenda and spencer ackerman having a bang-up first day on the jab at the guardian. thank you both. >>> a tea party hero who sued the federal government over obama-care is doing everything she can to save obama-care in her state. i'll tell you about the latest red state reversal next. when you do what i do, you think about risk. i don't like the ups and downs of the market, but i can't just sit on my cash. i want to be prepared for the long haul.

that's the case that senator merkley was trying to make, saying that the administration needs to takea court decisions, put them out in front of the american people and let the american people decide whether or not what's being done is appropriate, is legal, is right. and he's one of, of course, several senate democrats, including his oregon colleague ron widen and mark udall from colorado, giving voice to these privacy concerns and creating a headache fors the administration because any time the criticism comes from members of both parties, even if it's just a few members really speaking out, it's going to be a big deal. >> but, aaron, i read where this may force congress to pass laws to make these types of programs more transparent. done that undermine the effectiveness of these programs if potential terrorists will know what to avoid. >> it's such a balancing act and several members of the intelligence committee alluded to that fact yesterday, including sheldon whitehouse from rhode island, angus king from maine. it is a difficult situation where the members need to keep these prog

you had an exchange with senator merkley on the floor of the senate. he made him a promise that you oppose any legislation that would save the genetically modified plants would be grown up they had not been questioned by the court. can you talk about why that came up? > >> for me it is about process. he was concerned that something not be stuck in the bill with out an open hearing and debates. he and i may not be exactly on the same place overall on the issue, but i totally agree with him when it comes to the question of the process. i am not going to support adding something that would usurp a court decision without a full and open debate. that is really what that is about. i think what is important, there are so many eyepieces -- pieces around this that are important, one thing that is important to continue to stress is that from a consumer choice standpoint our farm bill i expanding on organic anduction and research allowing them to do marketing programs and so on, and all the range of things we're doing , it is about consumer choice. i am all about

merkley: thank you, madam president. thank you to my colleagues from rhode island and connecticut who are down here sharing their concerns about carbon pollution and its impact on climate around the world. indeed, it was just last october i had -- i was engaged in a triathlon and the first stage the swimming was in the ocean in north carolina, and i had been told to expect temperatures of 62 to 65 degrees, and as i went down to the water in the first group of participants getting off the transport bus, the person in front of me who had stepped in the water and said, "hey, folks, this water is really warm, come on in," and the temperature was not 62 degrees, it was not 65 degrees. the temperature in the ocean was 72 degrees. a understand and a week later hy struck the northeast with incredibly devastating consequences powered by this much warmer ocean water. and that is one of the many, many effects we're seeing of increased carbon in the atmosphere trapping the earth's heat. now, perhaps the most important number we shou

determined and that is you had senators over the last few years like ron wyden tom udall and jeff merkley pressuring the director of national intelligence and the n.s.a. to provide information about how many americans are under surveillance by these agencies trying to introduce legislation to bring transparency to these programs and they were all pretty much rebuffed but the question is did they already know the answers to these questions did the senators already know the extent to which these programs were being used to surveil on americans and if so were they just asking these questions to get intelligence officials on the public record to admit to what the senators already knew i think could perhaps a. the reason why only forty seven of the one hundred senators out of order that's knowing now apple facebook google and some of the other tech companies have released more information dealing with what exactly they have handed over to the government what do we learn from that aspect of this of this case but apple said several thousand they received several thousand requests from the govern

. >> jeff merkley called this quote outrageous brief -- and did everything short of leaki i classified information to stop it. a massive invasion of american's privacy saying when law-abiding americans call their friends, who they call, when they call and where they call from is prift information. the administration released a 2011 letter from the assistant attorney general saying this, quote, intelligence and judiciary committees have been briefed on these operations multiple times and that access to the copties of the court orders, but widen has a compelling argument that the government did mislead the public. he pointed to this change with james clapper at a hearing in march. >> does the nsa collect any type of data at all on millions or hurricanes of millions of americans? >> no, sir. >> it does not? >> not wittingly. there are cases where they could inadverte inadvertently, but not wittingly. >> clapper responded in an interview saying what i said was the nsa does not voierristically go through e-mails and they stand by that. didn't seem to be what the version of the question was,

yes it is possible he wouldn't get as much attention, if he simply went to the senators, like jeff merkley, like senator udall who cared deeply about this issue and are doing it the right way. instead, he just threw this stuff out to newspaper reporters at the washington post and guardian who were more responsible than he was, who actually didn't publish everything they did. he was so irresponsible, that even bart gelman of the washington post and glenn greenwald said, this is too much, we're not going to release that, we can't have a system where people with classified -- access to classified information behave that way and that's why we have laws against it. >> as far as extradition goes, the u.s. has a treaty with china. how does that work? >> well, it's a really unusual situation. because, yes, we have a treaty with hong kong, but hong kong is legally part of china. now, we have had a very successful relationship with hong kong and law enforcement regarding violent crimes, white collar crimes, regarding drugs. the question here is, what does china want to do, ultimately china is going

merkley proposes amendment 1237 as modified. mr. merkley: thank you, mr. president. i thought i'd take a few moments to share the contents of this amendment and why it's an important addition to the bill that we're considering currently. this is related to a very critical part of oregon's economy, which are timber jobs, forest jobs. forest jobs have long been a pillar of our rural economy in my state. in fact, my father worked as a mill right when he first came to oregon. he worked as a mechanic, basically keeping the sawmill operating. when the sawmill shut down, he pursued other jobs as a mechanic. we traveled with the timber economy, as so many families in oregon did. and many of our rural towns are mill towns, towns closely related to the production of lumber from our national forests and from private forests. over the past several decades times have been pretty tough in the timber economy. and we have many forest workers who have suffered through these tough times. their families have gone with the ups and downs of the timber economy. and certainly the recession

some people like jeff merkley and rand paul on the republican side but the great majority of congresson the wrong side, feinstein saying that this is how we protect america we must protect the homeland. i was like thank you the senator, i appreciate it. it was chilling, her language. then lindsay graham, who has found every conceivable way to attack the president. this time, spy ounce shred the constitution, go for it. >> i hope the american people appreciate that the way you protect the homeland is you try to find out what the enemy's up to. i'm a verizon customer. it doesn't bother me one bit for the national security administration to have my phone number, because what they're trying to do is find out what terrorist groups we know about and individuals and who the hell they're calling and if my number pops up on some terrorist phone, i'm confident that the fisa court is not going to allow my phone calls to be monitored by my government unless you and others can prove to them that i'm up to a terrorist activity through a probably cause standard. cenk: so spy on me, spy on me, and, y

some of the frustration senator widen and senator merkley had when they knew what was going on and they a political case for congress to act. >> are you going to be supporting investigations into finding out who has done the leaking? >> well, it's not a question of supporting. the investigations will proceed i assume. so i don't have to decide whether to support it or not. and there are leaks and there are leaks. some more damaging. frankly, the leak of the prison information, although we anticipated that, i was not surprised by that, but others -- that affected things abroad and that leak may have been more damaging. frankly, the first leakizon and were given metadata, i don't see how that is damaging at all. >> is it because we're damaging the operation of prism or the image. do we know prism has thwarted some terrorist attacks. >> i don't know that. i don't know that. i can't answer that question. >> how frustrated are you by all of this? >> well -- >> as you said, you have been o potsing the patriot acts -- >> not the entire patriot acts. parts of it. certainly this part. because we

. >> senator jeff merkley of oregon. thank you for explaining that. have you been more clear on that than anyone here thus far. i think you made news here tonight with that. >> thank you. >> thank you. >>> earlier, john stanton, the i go with big eyebrows and goatee, skull rings, he said one member of the senate was playing a jedi mind trick. just go online to pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. we'll do the rest. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] for dad's first job as dad. nissan tests hundreds of child seats to give you a better fit and a safer trip. snug kids, only from nissan. ♪ chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. you decide. ♪ i' prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. 'm a hard, harddecide. ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm working every day. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm saving all my pay. ♪ ♪ if i ever get some money put away, ♪ ♪ i'm going to take it all out and celebrate. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker... ♪ membership rallied millions of us on small bus

the amendments are manchin, 1268, pryor, 1298, merkley, 1237, as modified with the changes that are at the desk; boxer, 1240; reed of rhode island, 1224; cornyn, 1251; lee, 1208; paul, 1200, as modified with the changes at the desk; heller, 1227; and cruz 1320. finally, that no second-degree amendments be in order to any of these amendments prior to votes in relation to the amendments. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. reid: madam president, we now have these amendments in order and we'll work with all the parties to see if we can have some way of proceeding to set up votes on these matters. i would hope that we can work something out so that we don't have to do procedural things to try to get rid of them. we're going to do our utmost. i appreciate everyone's cooperation in getting this long list of amendments so that we can start voting on them. i would -- i think it would be a pretty fair assumption that we're not going to have any votes tonight on these amendments. we'll work something out tomorrow. it's 7:00. we still have a little more work to do on

. >> senator jeff merkley of oregon. thank you for explaining that. have been more clear than anybody else commenting thus far and i think you made news here tonight by being so clear. thank you for being with us, sir. >> you're very welcome. thank you. earlier this week on this show, john stanton, from buzz feed, the guy with the big eyebrows and goatee, skull rings, he said one member of the united states senate was playing a jedi mind trick on the whole country. the evidence for that hypothesis is coming up. -whoo-hoo! [ sound fades ] at a moment like this, i'm glad i use tampax pearl. [ female announcer ] tampax pearl protects better. only tampax has a leakguard braid to help stop leaks before they happen. tampax pearl protects better. look the samsung galaxy s4.eaks phones before they happen. it's like what i've got. look how big the screen is! that is big. and, walmart will give you a $50 gift card when you get the phone. sold! get the latest smart phones on t-mobile's nationwide 4g network, and get a $50 gift card. walmart. >>> the sending angr

. >> reporter: others, including oregon democrat jeff merkley, wanted to know more. >> so here i have my verizon phone. my cell phone. what authorized investigation gave you the grounds for acquiring my cell phone data? >> you know i think on the legal standards and stuff, on this part here, i think we need to get department of justice and others, because it is a complex area. i think what we're doing to protect american citizens here is the right thing. our agency takes great pride in protecting this nation and our civil liberties and privacy. >> reporter: alexander said he's bothered by how edward snowden,- an intelligence contractor at n.s.a.-- could learn of the surveillance programs, and then leak them. snowden's last known whereabouts were hong kong. and today, he was heard from again. in an interview with the "south china morning post", he declared: "i am neither traitor nor hero. i'm an american." he insisted he would not flee. instead, he said, "my intention is to ask the courts and people of hong kong to decide my fate." many in congress have condemned snowden and defended t

senator merkley recently produced some reform efforts to change the filibuster rule that would requirethose who choose to filibuster the filibuster, to make it more difficult for those who choose to do that. from outside the beltway, congress seems to be broken because we won't even debate the major issues of the day. you're statistics i think were instructed in that regard. what our chances in the filibuster reform, or is the culture such that there'll be no reform and we will continue to go in the same direction we have been going? thank you. >> hold your thought. i want to bring in several people at once we get him. this young man at the front right over here. you don't mind being called a young man. >> thank you. good afternoon. my name is james reid. i'm a student at george washington university. i will make this quick. there's a deficit of financial literacy in their countries was wondering how the bill addresses that, if there's any key players in congress that dealt with that, or if anyone during the bills drafting have dealt with the? >> good question. the gentleman on the ais

you saw a lot of democrats today, barbara mikulski, jeff merkley. they were asking tough questions about the safeguards for privacy, safeguards over the surveillance programs. republicans were asking the same questions. a lot of republicans and democrats both believe that these programs do thwart terrorist attacks, so there's not an overthrow of the nsa. but i think there's a real concern. this is going to lead to some more legislation to try to protect those taxpayers who are paying for the nsa and who are worried about their own privacy. >> more legislation is possible. will clapper have to resign, bob? >> clapper is really going to be under fire. you saw keith alexander today. he was getting tough questions. but clapper, the question for him is did he lie to congress? did he tell congress the truth about these programs? that's where the real anger is in congress. not so much the nsa as a bureaucracy but about clapper, dni, whether they were telling him the story. >> he made terrible, terrible mistakes in that hearing. dick armey, let's go to immi

with the exception of rand paul, ron paul, merkley who is a democrat and a couple of others like ronen who is a democrat too. fascinating alliances. lindsey graham, first guy to hand over -- said please give away all of your constitutional rights. he says look, for example in world war ii, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we're all in. we censored the mail. when you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. if i thought censoring the mail was necessary, i would suggest it but i don't think it is. in other words shut up. otherwise we'll censor everything. okay. we won't even let you send the e-mails. do you think it's bad? i'll make it worse. democratic kiss asses of obama like dianne feinstein in the same boat saying i don't look at this as being a whistle-blower. i think it's an act of treason. yeah senator feinstein treason like what you get for treason is execution. brilliant, terrific. i like the progressive senator from california. barbara boxer apparently another fraud. of course, falling right in line with president obama saying yes! spy

there are lots of responsible people in this government, senator udall, senator merkley, people who areut you don't get to just disclose it on your own and then run off to china. this is a guy who is concerned about free speech and he goes to china? a country that represses more free speech in an hour than at united states does in a year? >> i think he explained why he went to hong kong. i think focusing on him is a transparent distraction from where the focus should be, which is on the message, on his disclosures. i think there's some clear confusion here about what a whistleblowing disclosure is. what mr. snowden disclosed is not a policy debate, it's evidence of government illegality. >> he exposed a court order which said they had authority to do it. i don't see how -- >> section 215 of -- >> that may be a bad program but -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> sense 215 of the patriot act requires every investigation that has information that's collected under that act be related to international terrorism or stopping counterintelligence. that said, he doesn't even have to be right about the il

>> well, senator merkley, the private student loans are often underwritten to the fico score and income of a cosigner. so for borrowers whose parent, say, is not very creditworthy, they, in fact, would have a higher rate when they were freshmen. and i think that many of them wonder once they do graduate and land a very good job, they wonder that given that their risk profile may have considerably slunk, they have developed their own credit history, why they may -- why they're unable to find a product in the market that is a lower risk-adjusted price. >> and they wonder about that because they're not able to refinance? >> that's right. and i think many of them see the incredible savings that perhaps that their parents, who may be homeowners who have been able to refinance given today's historically low interest rates. >> does this system in general as we've described it here create extra hurdles for those who come to the education marketplace with poor assets? >> well, there are certainly issues with market efficiency when risk does -- when price does not seem to match risk which seems t

i would like to share with the committee, we're going to go to durban, merkley, collins, tom udall, senator landrieu, senator feinstein. we will go right to you. then we will go to senator boseman, and then senator fryer. >> thanks to senator mikulski for bringing the cyber issue into sharp focus for the entire senate with their bipartisan briefing. i was under the intelligence committee after 9/11. it was automatic investment in intelligence resources to keep safe..-- keep us a dramatic investment in the personnel to execute the plan to keep us safe. i trust, and i still do that we were hiring the very best. trusting them to not only give us the best in terms of knowledge, but their loyalty to our country. i would like to ask you about one of those employees. who is now in a hong kong hotel, and what we know about him as follows. he was a high school dropout. he was a community college dropout. he had a ged degree. he was injured in training for the u.s. army. he had to leave. he did the job as a security guard for the nsa in maryland. shortly thereafter, he did the job for the cia in what

host: mike lee, republican of utah, and jeff merkley put in fourth -- put forth a bill that would declassifyot of this information. janet hook wrote about it this week, saying that a change is unlikely, quoting senator dick durbin of illinois, calling it "an uphill battle." guest: this is the same uphill battle that congress faced in 1978 good if you go back and read the debates then, you see a very content chris -- and take cantankerous debate. arguing that that should be declassified and the information should be public. we have seen with regard to title, there is an extraordinary array of information that has been produced by the government for ordinary search warrant's that gives us great insight into how that process works. in my view, there are many ways in which that could be done for fisa, which is -- which is not currently being done. congress could introduce new legislation to protect communications of american citizens and frankly of congressional members, because it is not just the other people that this applies to, but it applies to congress as well. host: our guest is laura don

senator jeff merkley democrat of oregon on this subject as well. >> i would like to know how the presidenthanie: sam in jacksonville, you're on "the stephanie miller show." hi sam. >> caller: hi, stephanie, how are you? >> stephanie: good. go ahead. >> caller: there were a couple of things about this spying thing. one that the guy didn't work for nsa. he worked for a private contractor. which is way too many in our government to begin with. the only other thing that really bothered me was i read somewhere this weekend that you know, people are using it to spy on their ex-wives and things like that. when you talk about maybe presidential candidates or something like that if you get a partisan person in there that's going to dig up dirt, that's just not fair. we don't want it on our side and they don't want it on their side. so, you know, this thing needs strict overview and it needs to get out of private contractor's hands and be part of a responsible government service. >> stephanie: we were talking about this guy earlier sam. it is a little scary. high school dropout. didn't finish comput

host: mike lee, republican of utah, and jeff merkley put forth a bill that would declassify a lot of this information. janet hook wrote about it this week, saying that a change is unlikely, quoting senator dick durbin of illinois, calling it "an uphill battle." guest: this is the same uphill battle that congress faced in 1978 good if you go back and read the debates then, you see a very cantankerous debate. arguing that that should be declassified and the information should be public. we have seen with regard to title, there is an extraordinary array of information that has been produced by the government for ordinary search warrant's that gives us great insight into how that process works. in my view, there are many ways in which that could be done for fisa, which is -- which is not currently being done. congress could introduce new legislation to protect communications of american citizens and frankly of congressional members, because it is not just the other people that this applies to, but it applies to congress as well. host: our guest is laura donahue of georgetown university.

ioth sides of the aisle to be would like to share with the committee, we're going to go to durban, merkleycollins, tom udall, senator landrieu, senator feinstein. we will go right to you. then we will go to senator rosen, and then senator fryer. >> thanks to senator mikulski for bringing the cyber issue into sharp focus for the entire senate with their bipartisani was under the intelligence committee after 9/11. it was automatic investment in intelligence resources to keep us say. a dramatic investment in the personnel to execute the plan to keep us say. i trust, and i still do that we were hiring the very best. trusting them to not only give us the best in terms of knowledge, but their loyalty to our country. aboutd like to ask you one of those employees. who is now in a hong kong hotel, and what we know about him as follows. he was a high school dropout. dropout. he had a ged degree. he was injured in training for the u.s. army. he had to leave. he did the job as a security guard for the nsa in maryland. shortly thereafter, he did the job for the cia in what is characterized as i.t. secu