so let's take midar. you would authorize us to get midar's phones in california, but midar was talking to the other four teams. under the business record fisa, because we had store thad data in a database, we now have what we call reasonable arctic u label situation and we could go and see the four other groups. we don't know who those people were. we'd only get numbers, say this looks of interest and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at the identities of it. we only look at the connections. >> i'm way over time. i'm not going dwell on it. you have just given clear information about telephone contacts which i don't worry with. what i quarrel with is querying all calls in california. >> thank you very much. >> general alexander i want to talk cyber command, but senator durbin has raise add very interesting question. let me just follow up on this. would this lead the scenario that he's laid out, would it lead to a telephone record search for all of omaha or walk us through that. >> so the methodology woul

what we don't know, going back in time, is the phone call between yemen and midar, if we would have had reasonable suspicions to enter. so we would have to look at that. assuming that we did, if we had the data base that we have now and we searched on that yemen number and saw it was talking to someone in california, we could have tipped that to the f.b.i. another step, and this is an assumption, but let me play this out, because we will never be able to go back and redo all the figures from 9/11, but this is why some of these figures were put in in order to do that, going from midar, we would have been able to find the other three teams in the united states and/or one in germany. so the ability to use the metta data would have allowed us, we believe, to see something. so it is hypothetical. there are a lot of conditions that we can put on there. you would have to this have this right, but we didn't have that ability. we couldn't connect the dots, because we didn't have the dots. so i think what we have here is one more additional capability to help us work together as a team to help us

so let's take midar. you had authorized us to get midar's phones in california.ams. under the business record because we had stored that information in a data base, you now have reasonable suspicion. we can take that number and go backwards in time and see who he was talking to. if we saw there were four other groups, we wouldn't know who those people were. we'd only get the numbers. we'd say this looks of interest. and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at u.s. -- the identities of it. we only look at the connections. >> i'm way over time. i'm not going to dwell on it. you've just given a clear illustration where you had specific information about telephone contacts which i don't quarrel with. what i quarrel with is collecting all of the information in california on telephone records to try to find that specific case. that, to me, seems overly broad. >> thank you very much. >> if you're just joining us and wondering what this was about, this exchange, this was between senator dick durbin on the senate appropriations committee as this hearing was scheduled befor

what we don't know, going back in time, is the phone call between yemen and midar, if we would have hadreasonable suspicions to enter. so we would have to look at that. assuming that we did, if we had the data base that we have now and we searched on that yemen number and saw it was talking to someone in california, we could have tipped that to the f.b.i. another step, and this is an assumption, but let me play this out, because we will never be able to go back and redo all the figures from 9/11, but this is why some of these figures were put in in order to do that, going from midar, we would have been able to find the other three teams in the united states and/or one in germany. so the ability to use the metta data would have allowed us, we believe, to see something. so it is hypothetical. there are a lot of conditions that we can put on there. you would have to this have this right, but we didn't have that ability. we couldn't kekt connect the dots, because we didn't have the dots. so i think what we have here is one more additional capability to help us work together as a team to hel

let's take midare a. you authorized us to get the phones in california. missare a was talking to the other four teams. under the business record fisa, because we had stored that data in a database, we have what we call reasonable articulatable suspicion and we can do back in time and see who he talked to. if we saw four other groups, we wouldn't know who they are, we'd only get the numbers and say this looks of interest and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at u.s. -- the identities of it. we only look at the connections. >> i'm way over time. i'm not going to dwell on it. you gave a clear illustration where you had specific information about telephone contacts which i don't quarrel with. i quarrel with collecting all of the information in california on telephone records to find that specific case. that to me seems overly broad. >> thank you very much. >> there you go. >> shepard: we'll continue to cover this. a quick commercial break and our coverage continues after this. hungry for the best? it's eb. want to give your family the very best in taste, fr

in 2001, midar in california, the intelligence community didn't know that. we weren't able to connect those dots. these programs are helping us connect the dots. i think that's very important to have the tools of this. we can argue over which do the is the most important, but at the end of the day, we didn't have enough information to connect the dots. and i think working with fbi, cia and others, our job is to get the information. if we're going to defend the information, we need the intelligence. here's the key, i think another important point on this, look at the information that we're collecting. in 2012, less than 300 selectors were proved for reasonable significance in the database. it's a small set. two-thirds are foreign. one-third were in the u.s. of those one-third, we treat all phones inside the u.s. as u.s. persons. so in this case, when we talked about the 2009 case of zazi, he was in colorado. that is considered a u.s. person. so from our perspective, tracking them is the most important thing we can do. here's what's in the balance. over 50 cas

let's take midar. midar was talking to the other four teams.nder the business record fisa, we can take that number and go back and see who he was talking to. if we saw those other groups, we'd say this looks of interest and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at the identities of it. we only look at the connection. >> i went over time. you just gave an illustration we have specific information about telephone contacts. what i quarrel with is collecting all the information in california on telephone records define a that specific case. that seems overly done. >> thank you. senator? togeneral alexander, i want talk about cyber command but senator durden has raised an interesting question. would this lead, the scenario he has laid out, to a telephone records search for all of omaha? walk us through that. >> the methodology would be let's put into a secure environment all detailedthese are two from records. we don't know anything that's in there. we won't search that. unless we have some reasonable suspicion. if we see that, we have to prove we hav

let's take midar. midar was talking to the other 14 under the business record fisa -- other four teams. under the business record fisa, we can take that number and go back and see who he was talking to. if we saw those other groups, of interests looks and pass that to the fbi. we don't look at the identities of it. we only look at the connection. >> i went over time. an illustration we have specific information about telephone contacts. what i quarrel with is collecting all the information in california on telephone records define a that specific case. that seems overly done. >> thank you. senator? , i want toalexander talk about cyber command but senator durden has raised an interesting question. would this lead, the scenario he has laid out, to a telephone omaha? search for all of walk us through that. methodology would be let's put into a secure environment all detailed records. these are two from records. we don't know anything that's in there. we won't search that. unless we have some reasonable a