mr. clement. >> mr. chief justice, hay it please the court, the equal protection analysis in this case should focus on two points, first, what does section three do and second, to whom does section three do it. what it does is exclude from an array of federal benefits lawfully married couples. that means the spouse of a soldier killed in line of duty cannot receive the dignity and solace of an official notify eags of next of kin. >> but congress could go the other way, congress could pass a new law today that says we will give federal benefits, when you say marriage in federal law, we mean committed same-sex couples as well, and that could fly across -- apply across the board or they couldn't do that? >> that wouldn't raise the same equal protection problem like this does. >> you don't think it would raise a federalism problem either, to you? >> i don't think it would raise a federalism problem but the key for our purposes is that in addition to denying these fundamental -- fundamentally important benefi

mr. clement, you have 3 minutes remaining. >> thank you, mr. chief justice, just three points in rebuttal. first of all, i was not surprised to hear the solicitor general concede that there is no unique federalism problem with doma, because in the gill litigation in the first circuit, the state of massachusetts -- the commonwealth of massachusetts invoked the tenth amendment, and on that issue the united states continued to defend doma because there is no unique federalism problem with it, as the chief justice's question suggested. if 10 years from now there are only 9 states left and congress wants to adopt a uniform federal law solely for federal law purposes to going the other way, it is fully entitled to do that. it has the power to do that. i would say also the federal government has conceded in this litigation that there is a rational basis for this statute, something else to keep in mind. i would also say that this provision is not so unique. the very next provision in the dictionary act >> rational basis, mr. clement -- is a problem in

mr. clement. >> mr. chief justice and may please the the court. the issue certainly implicates profound and deeply held views on both sides of the issue. the legal question on the merits for this court is quite narrow. on the assumption that states have the constitutional option either to define marriage in traditional terms or to recognize same-sex marriages or to adopt a compromise like civil unions. does the federal government have the same flexibility or must the government borrow the terms in state law. i would submit basic principles suggest that as long as the federal government defines those terms solely for purposes of federal law, that the federal government has the choice, to borrowhe definition or the terms of the statute. >> the problem is it was the state decision that there is a .arriage between two people for the government to say no social security benefits. your spouse is very sick but you cannot get leave. what kind of marriage is this? >> i think the answer to that would be to say that that is a marriage under state law and thi

mr. snowden is correct when he says that the nsa is targeting everybody's communications. >> yes. there are several ways you can show that. one is the tim clemente cnn, he talked about the ability to go back and get phone conversations between. he's talking about all that information is collected and stored and from it they can pick and target anyone they want. >> john: now isn't the agency under the statute that created it supposed to focus purely and clearly on overseas communication, not domestic. >> that's correct. >> john: and mr. clapper was emphatic in telling congress they were not collecting communications from americans. >> yes and that's false. >> john: and is there anything about the prism program illegal? does the law allow this kind of data mining. >> no, because it's talking about collecting everything off the internet, that includes americans' communication as well. they're easeily detectable and identifiable as americans. >> john: get please. >> the fisa, even when they go to verizon order from the fisa court judge, that was an order to turn over all their call records, that included every u.s. citizen that was part--has a veriz