hackers -- force of nsa hackers. these are the guys that they call in. in fact, some of the people i write about in the book actually have worked in it. so we are very, very good. the problem is that we don't have enough people to go out and wage these operations compared to our add adversaries. that is, if we are measuring this in terms of if we were to ever go to war with a big country in cyberspace, how would we match up against them? the chinese have thrown thousands more people at gathering espionage -- information from companies that we have digital spies going out and gathering information. our advantage probably comes from our technological prowess. just today, in fact, there was news -- you may have read about this -- this new computer virus that was discovered called regin, i'm not exactly sure how to pronounce i want. reagan. it's reagan. it's a name from no, sir mythology -- norse mythology. this fascinating piece of malware that was discovered and dissected and found that it could, basically, gather huge

of approval from the nsa. they're experts at breaking cuts and we know it has essentially been putting a recommendation or endorsement of what they know to be flawed. this is like if the government would market to say everybody buy this lock it cannot be penetrated but the nsa has the key but somebody else has it. as of battlefield makes it less safe all of this has emerged with no debate with their growing technology as president eisenhower described the previous generation and changing how we used the internet. to vaster were too pervasive to allow a anti-and i argue in the book it should not be vested inside a secret intelligence agency. we come to depend on them like a public utility also with privately-owned devices but it is a collective lie it is incumbent on everyone who attaches to take a stake to find what eisenhower calls the essential agreement a wise resolution to better shape the nation and i will be happy to take your questions. [applause] >> you could come to the microphone it is being recorded

he was an nsa geek. he had developed along with some of these other people, he developed this program before 9/11 that he thought could help the nsa deal more effectively with the growth of the internet and digital information. he felt that before 9/11 and in the 1990's he had a running argument with a lot of people at the nsa over the fact that nsa back in the 1990's was focused on radio technology, radio communications of big government and big militaries like the russians. they were eavesdropping on traditional military and governmental targets around the world on traditional closed networks of communication. he felt the nsa had failed to grasp the importance of the open architecture of the internet that you knew the internet was providing a wide open means of communication and -- that they were not taking seriously because it was not classified. the nsa had a bias toward targeting the secure communications of foreign governments and militaries. in his opinion, ignoring the the new technology and new

we had the whole experience with the nsa story in 2004 and 2005. since then, they have been very supportive and i really appreciate it. chris if you go to prison, would you get paid? >> i do not know. i hope so. >> what is your sense of what will happen to you? >> i do not know, i really do not know. it is in limbo. >> is a trial of jeffrey sterling in january? >> yes. >> he is whole? >> i cannot get into the details. i will not talk about. >> for what reason? can't.st i cannot discuss the details of the case. the last little area before we close it down. you opened in the prologue by -- two sentences. former deputy secretary -- metaphor that was a is real issue of what and what is not in the war on terror. , that was april 9, 2009, barack obama had just started his presidency. april 9 was the sixth anniversary of the fall of baghdad, the sixth anniversary of the day of which u.s. troops pulled down the statue of saddam hussein in the square. it kind of marked as i did day that saddam lost the war. later, as you may remember the war in iraq was goi

my comment is, you don't want nsa in that private sector network. i'm not in that private sector network. therefore, i'm counting on the private sector to share with us. so, tell -- what i'm interested in, from the private sector is, what i think so i would owe the private sector is, here's the specifics of the threats coming at you. here are the precursor kinds of activities we think you'll see before the attacks. here is the composition of the malware we think you'll see. here's how we think you can see it. what i'm interested in learning from the private sector is, tell me what you actually saw. was the malware you detected written along the lines that we anticipated? was it different? how was it different? help me understand when you responded to this, what worked for you and what didn't work. how did you configure your networks? what was effective? what can we share with others so that the insights of one now come to the aid of many. that's the kind of back and forth we need with each other. >> you made an interesting point. i think is one of t

fbi obstinantly refuses to tag the source of data some which comes from nsa which nsa had to do since 2009. the same things nsa is required to do just for spying fbi is not required to do yet they're the ones throwing people in jail so. >> i mean we made, as a nation, a policy choice after 9/11. there was a lot of discussion about should we set up a separate domestic intelligence agency? and the choice was made, no, we'll keep it in the fbi. and that necessarily means we've got an agency that does both intelligence and law enforcement and that creates a whole lot of complications particularly in an environment where every commission that has looked at every terrorist attack has said, we need to insure there is greater flow of information back and forth. so i'm not really in a position, i don't have that much, because fbi is part of the department of justice, i don't have the same visibility into oversight there i do with respect to the nsa but the problems are much more complicated because of the dual functions of the fbi. >> thank you. bill of rights defense commit team i have a ques

i have some concerns about nsa. steve mentioned the id reports, one of those happened to be that 215 report, which did not come out before usa freedom was voted on. tag the source of their data, some of which comes from nsa, which nsa has had to do since 2009. nsa is required to do, the fbi is not required to do, yet they are the ones throwing people in jail. >> we made a policy choice after 9/11. separate mastic intelligence agency. the choice was made that we are going to keep it in the fbi. that does not necessarily mean pertainsn agency that to intelligence and law enforcement. every commission that has looked at every terrorist attack has said we need a greater flow of information back and forth. because the fbi is part of the department of justice, i do not have the same visibility or oversight. the problems are much more complicated because of the dual functions. thank you. >> i have a question. last year your boss did intentionally obfuscate a question that he later acknowledged that was clearly erroneous. w

it does not give any authority to the nsa to do anything. what it does, in fact, is impose restrictions on the surveillance. what it says is when you collect information about americans, regardless of the thoerty you collected under, whether it's under fiza or any other authorities, you must limit the retention of information to those people. i don't know why people are misleading this. >> if i'm referring to the correct position, i think it imposes min mization including 12333. that can be interpreted as ratifying or it can be interpreted as imposing stabd ard standards where there are none. this simply says if you do what you're already doing, you have to have restrictions on it. >> and my primary point is, this will be debated, no doubt, by wiser people than myself. why wait until the last moment in the heat of an omnibus spending bill to do this kind of thing? this was debated and then passed through. >> i wanted to go back to the earlier discussion about declassification. going forward, now that we've had some of the conversation about

we learned a lot about the systems and the global nature of how the nsa does that. there were blueprints for exploits, which you might think of as cyber weapons that were leaked out as well, published overseas. what we got is a glimpse into how systematic cyber operations have become for the intelligence community and how central hacking is to both the intelligence gathering mission of the nsa but also the mission to go out and try and disrupt and penetrate adversary networks. the united states was responsible for knocking north korea offline, the expertise to do that resides in the nsa. those are the people you would task to execute that mission. documents told us a lot about how central the cyber mission has now become for the intelligence community. doctrine ast have a the others do for offense and defense? guest: it is developing. there are some rules of the road beginning to form. how it plays into the sony situation is the question of what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace. what would be an action that a country or group could take against us that would

you've been very critical of the nsa.is a side of the nsa that is a cyber defense what is said to be crucial. i did a piece at the nsa with outgoing director keith alexander and he talked about some of the issues. take a listen to this. >> what we can take is realtime capabilities and defend our networks from threats coming at them. at the same time we see those threats going towards clear defense contractors and other critical parts of our history. but we have no mechanism for sharing information back and forth in realtime. so that means if a missile -- take the physical analogy. a missile coming into a military installation, we can shoot it down. but if it's going into civilian population, we have nothing that we can do other than let the missile hit and talk to them about what they can do to clean it up. >> so he's saying their hands are tied, they can protect government. >> they should be able to protect us without spying on us. now, i don't know the technology of how that would work, but a part of their mission is ab

you're the nsa. - there's 300 million people out there. how do you think we're able to keep track of every single person in the country? how do you think we're able to really know who's doing what? - i don't know. - all right, i'll show you, but this is very top security stuff, because if people knew how we did it, then everyone would do it. then our enemies would do it. we can't let our enemies get their hands on this. - get their hands on what? [electronic beeping and buzzing] [mechanical whirring] dude. [ominous musical flourish] - this is how we know who's a threat and who's not, how we know who's sleeping and who's awake. how we know that-- [whistle blowing] - you think i'm fat and unimportant now? i am eric cartman! and i've got news for you. this is all being broadcast live on my twitter zeppelin and on alec baldwin's new television show via shitter. - hi, everybody and welcome to my new show on msnbc, free pass with alec baldwin. - [thinking] your secret is out, nsa. and now that everyone knows what you're doing to santa, you can k

teams with the nsa. documents have pointed to a lot of activity that are designed to do deep as you nosh and -- did spionage.sh -- deep e and the military. >> kim zetter, where did the from?from? -- come >> it was dubbed by microsoft. two found, that combined names of two separate files. >> private corporations were participating in this, correct? chris how so? christie said microsoft was looking for zero days. >> microsoft was working to help design the attack. 2010,t was discovered in multiple firms and security research labs were taking it apart. microsoft was focusing on zero they were in the microsoft operating system. they had to examine and figure of our abilities. >> what was the effect of the stuxnet attack? -- >> it had two different payloads. , which is thele carrier which gets it to the target. and then the payload which is the explosive end. payloads.d 2 one was to close valves to track the uranium and side of the centrifuges. when that was occurring, the gas becd condense and the, -- more o

and that is what is happening with nsa. not just nsa of course, but will local release their part -- local police departments are doing. last week at an eric garner protest in chicago, there were chicagoweeting that a emergency vehicle, it miraculously started disrupting people's cell phone and there is wasspread speculation this a stingray device that gathers data on those devices in the area area -- area. i wanted to introduce the panel. running late. i'm going to read so i do not screw up anybody's job title. harvey is the advocacy director for the center of democracy and technology. to my right, we have the policy analyst for homeland security and the liberties at the cato and to. at my far right, a law enforcement from george washington university. we will have a discussion and leave about 20 minutes for questions. i am sure that there is a lot of interest. these are fine and person i am sure would love to answer these questions. maybe we can start with warren. this idea -- this paradoxical idea that we are in both a w

i have met people from the fbi, the cia, and the nsa, and they are. but here is what madison said about government. the reason we restrain government is because if government were always comprised of angels, we wouldn't have to worry. i don't take a whale -- takeaway or feel we have to limit the nsa's power because of one bad person but i do object to the accumulation of power for the danger of abuse. i will give you an example. in 2011, we passed legislation that allows for the indefinite detention of an american citizen without trial. that goes against everything that is fundamental to our country. -- i had a citizen debate with another republican senator. i said this means an american , citizen could be sent to guantanamo bay without a trial forever. ,he is like, yeah, if they are dangerous. that begs the question, doesn't it? who gets to decide who is dangerous and who is not? the president signed it and he objected to it also. but this is like so many things the president does. he said, i object to it but i'm never going to use it because i'm a g

the nsa is watching this, tracing it back. have they responded yet to brian's reporting and what do you expect they will do? >> i've reached out to folks in law enforcement doing this investigation and they haven't gotten back to me. i'm checking my phone because any minute now we're expecting a statement from the fbi that will lay out the attribution of this hack. this is the official statement that the government is going to issue saying that they believe this hack was carried out on orders of north korea so that's what we expect to come from them the nsa has been working around the clock. the national security division of the justice department is on this. the nsa has good visibility on internet traffic that comes out of north korea the way this hack was done, the hackers tried to mask the servers they were using. they tried to use servers in asia in china, european countries, latin america but there was some fingerprints they left behind that the fbi and the nsa were able to find and track right back to north korea. >> a b

an nsa document describes how --

that's according to a new nsa report. it details intelligence collection that may have violated the law or american policy. this includes unauthorized surveillance of americans' overseas communication. the report was released to the president's intelligence

the american civil liberties union has criticized the nsa for releasing the documents on christmas eve, saying the timing suggests officials wanted to minimize their impact.

nsa is le say, oh, the watching me. it won't actually interview with that kind of particular program. encryption cannot be used against it. but it is, i think, a difficult question. we ran into this a little bit in the patriot act, where there are some aspects of the patriot acts that are narrow -- and some are broader -- but some of the narrow portions were reported incorrectly as being brought. a lot of people worried about from the patriot act based on what was basically misreporting. then you say the patriot act has a chilling effect. well, is the chilling effect from the misreporting aspect of it? is it from what the government is doing? from the government standpoint, they said they didn't want anybody to know of the surveillance. >> i am glad you brought up the patriot act because i would generalized w a question out there. which is -- why was the patriot act passed? >> 9/11. >> right. >> so the basic frame that the government has presented -- over the course of the last 13 years -- is basically this. we had to p

it does not give any authority to the nsa to do anything. what it does in fact, it imposes restrictions on the -- on surveillance. what it says is when you collect information about americans, regardless of the authority you collect it under, whether it is under fisa or any other authority, you must limit the retention of that. i do not know why people that to give

the secret documents, at least some of which came from nsa whistleblower edward snowden span from 2009 and 2011. according to the german newsmagazine der spiegel which reviewed them, they show targeted killings were -- "not just viewed as a last resort to prevent attacks, but were in fact part of everyday life in the guerilla war in afghanistan." in one case, a young boy was killed and his father injured by a british helicopter pilot who was targeting a suspected mid-level taliban commander.

some of which comes from nsa. which nsa has had to do since 2009. so the same things that nsa is required to do, just for spying, fbi is not required to do, yet they're the ones throwing people in jail. so -- >> i mean, we made as a nation a policy choice after 9/11, there was a lot of discussion about should we set up a separate domestic intelligence agency. and the choice was made, no, we're going to keep it in the fbi. that necessarily means we've got an agency that does both intelligence and law enforcement. that creates a lot of complications, particularly in an environment where every commission that's looked at every terrorist attack has said, we need to share a greater flow of information back and forth. i'm not really in a position -- i don't have that much -- because the fbi is part of the department of justice, i don't have the same visibility of the oversight there that i do with respect to the nsa, but the problems are am much more complicated because of the dual functions of the fbi. >> bill of rights defense committee. i have a questi

that i will say stop the nsa spying on you. because they don't silently. -- because they don't spy on you. we are finally seeing how sophisticated these gosar. it was an international state capability. it went to others. now it's medical records, financial records. sony, maybe because it's the entertainment business, but the psycheis on the public is i want to be a movie producer . those guys like a lot of money. my fear is that if we don't fit here,ill, i think you are i'm not sure what it was a good idea. again, i fear if we don't start getting on the defend ourselves side of the trouble. parts we're out of time. thank you for doing this. we are out of time. i want to thank you for doing this. in a form commentary january. >> daunting. thank you. thank you everybody. >> here are some of the programs you'll mind the weekend on the c-span network. & a, manu raju and john bresnahan. c-span 2, tonight at 10:00 on book tv afterwards, lindsay mark lewis on money and politics and how it has grown and changed and senior correspondent

and i don't think most people realize what's going on. >> so, gabe bre yell, niko mentioned the nsa. your website traffic actually had an enormous jump after revelations that the nsa was tracking americans personal data. why do you think we saw this public? >> we always knew people didn't want to be tracked but they don't know what to do about it. so now, we are seeing, you know, you and other people highlighting the alternative, things that you can switch to with little or no sacrifice, to reduce your digital footprint. when people understand they can do that, a lot of people make the switch. >> niko and gabriel both have mentioned dictal footprint. we asked our community is it possible to have a zero sdict al footprint and they say it will send via pagein post. i will lay out crumbs. anything i do online, i assume it is in the public realm. niko. is it possible to have a zero digital footprint? facebook, someone tags me, four square people check me in. i can't control other people's behavior. should we try to achieve a zero digital footprint or should it be minimal? >> everyone on

this is obviously, nsa its very controversial. one time where we can see that they are, they're actually on the ball. >> all right, evan perez, interesting news breaking tonight. thank you for being with us, we appreciate it. the question is what to do about it, as evan mentioned, the government plans to publicly blame north korea for behind being this. jim schuhdoe covering this angle for us tonight. jim, what does the white house do? this is a national security matter, if in fact it's true that north korea is behind it, how will the white house approach this. >> they say they want to respond and the response to be proportional. they want to calibrate it carefully. that's what they do now. they're considering options and making sure it achieves the considerable balance. >> what are the options? >> naming and shaming north korea. it's a step that you have all the evidence now but haven't taken the step of publicly calling them out. it's something that took them years to do, frankly, john, with china with cyber attacks on u.s. comp

right now we are the council in three cases that are against the nsa for the warrantless wiretapping program and the phone records program, one of which is that the appeals level. i was just arguing before the ninth ninth circuit earlier this month on december 8 and then we have two cases that are at the district court level, one of which was essentially filed in 2008 long before the snowdon leak but based on the information at that time based on "the new york times" and "usa today" reporting. we have an earlier case before that against at&t for their cooperation in the program but that was shut down by the congresses retroactive immunity and the fisa amendments act. and we have to two cases that are consolidated on appeal dealing with national security letter power. the district court, the federal district court in san francisco ruled that that power was unconstitutional and struck it down so she stayed her decision pending the appeal so we just argued that in early october before the ninth circuit court of appeals. we are trying multiple frontier and multiple strategies to try to g

we learned a lot about the systems and the global nature of how the nsa does that.blueprints for exploits, which you might think of as cyber weapons that were leaked out as well, published overseas. what we got is a glimpse into how systematic cyber operations have become for the intelligence community and how central hacking is to both the intelligence gathering mission of the nsa but also the mission to go out and try and disrupt and penetrate adversary networks. if the united states was responsible for knocking north korea offline, the expertise to do that resides in the nsa. those are the people you would task to execute that mission. the snowden documents told us a lot about how central the cyber mission has now become for the intelligence community. host: does it have a doctrine as the others do for offense and defense? guest: it is developing. there are some rules of the road beginning to form. how it plays into the sony situation is the question of what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace. what would be an action that a country or group could take agains

. >> what the nsa has been doing, as far as we know, fair or unfair?> if the intentions are truly for national security, i think it is fair. setback.want another this is only a personal view. --if the nsa wanted a black backdoor to blackberry, would you open it? >> we don't have backdoors but we would not do that. from time to time, the government wanted information from us, ok? first of all, we don't keep it around could you need to know that. if we do it, it has to be under court order. >> have you ever had a moment where you thought what did i get myself into? >> twice. yes, i have. ♪ >> since you are the tech industry's turnaround guy. i would like to ask you help other turnarounds are going to yahoo!? >> from what i can reed, they seem to be doing well. they look at it from the growth, revenue, and all that. guided that way, that is one thing. comee compass fundamentals stronger in the long term i would focus on that page from that perspective, it feels like they are doing the right thing. doing think russ meyer is a good job? >> i don't know her

we need to find out if the nsa is spying on us. i have no problem with the nsa spying on me.ll supposedly the boss. not a group of people in washington. we started the conversation by saying we know everything. we started the conversation by saying we know about poland. we know three people. >> and my point is the american people support these activities. whatever it takes. keep the country safe. >> today you'll see a group of senators when the report comes out crying foul about how they can't believe america is doing this. this is the same senators that were believed a decade and a half ago and know everything. and today in 2014, they'll say oh my gosh, i can't believe they did this. >> and hillary clinton was briefed. >> that's the most offensive thing. and i've said this this a lot because i've known people involved who did what their country asked them to do. did what their president asked them to do. did what their vice president asked them to do. they briefed nancy pelosi. they briefed -- >> -- diane. >> dianne feinstein wasn't on the committee. i've made that mistake b

enough time pass that those efforts are going to accelerate now. >> can i ask you a question on the nsapecifically then because international politics aside there's an awful lot of people on the revelations from snowden that might say politically this may be an issue for mr. balm ball bobama but if to reign them in as many people would want them to then the quid pro quo is they should be acting in this event. they should be acting. is that politically domestically an issue for him or is it too small fry. >> well i don't know how direct the connection is but i'm pretty confident that the nsa is not just under this president but under other presidents is vigilant to national security threats of various kinds including attempts to disrupt commerce and industry. so i think that is part of the package whether that part will change or become -- receive added focus it may but i'm not sure. >> the united states does have the capability to get back on a cyber way in essence fry the computers that the north koreans use to carry out this attack or were involved in this attack in some way. the ques

court has dealt a blow to an opposition party attempts to force the government to bring the former nsa contractor edward snowden to belin. >> the members of the grains and the left parties brought a suit against the government for its refusal to summon snowden. he is addressing an internet security conference as part of the investigation into the nsa spying scandal. he has agreed to testify in front of the parliamentary inquiry but only if he is allowed to travel to germany. >> the vice president of korean air lines triggered a storm of outrage by delaying the flight from new york to soul so the cabin crew chief could be kicked off, allowing macadamia nuts to be served in bags as set of plates. >> her father, the ceo of korean airlines apologized and asked the public to forgive his daughters poor upbringing. >> we're going to a short break. when we come back, how low can the price of oil go and what affect is it having on the economy? >> a potential breakthrough in the fight against ebola, don't go away. >> 1914, an online special looking back at this mobile catastrophe. all about the

he ran the nsa and was cia director starting during the bush era from '06 to '09. we talked to him about this torture report. he disagrees with the definition, for starters. says what was carried out was not torture. we then talked about overall and global impact. how are we better than our enemies morally in light of what we all read about today? >> well, let me give you a startling statement, brian, and look, everyone knows these things were very tough. i got involved in this very late in the program. i endorsed their use going forward in a very minimized form. so these decisions aren't taken lightly by anyone, believe me. let me give you an odd calculus here, brian. as bad as some people think cia behavior was with regard to these 100 or so detainees, if everyone on the planet used cia behavior as the model, the overall treatment of detainees on earth would actually improve. >> should that be the standard, however? >> well, brian, the standard was what is lawful, effective and appropriate in a time of great extremists of the united states with 3,000 fellow citiz