plenty of busy dunkin' donutses themselveses -- reggie walton has a very busy docket himself-- and they have a very busy staff. soso those lawyers receive the information from the compliance allegations, and they elevate to the judge if it warrant it it and that's a very practical reason why it would be impossible to be policing and looking behind the government when they report thousands of violations. >> warner: now, doesn't this compliance or violations of

. >> warner: now, equally startling was your companion poos, what the district court judge, reggie walton, said to you about the fisa court's authority when you asked him about this. explain that a little more. >> so he's the chief judge of the secret spy court, the foreign intelligence surveillance court, that is supposed to be the lynchpin for the checks and balances on our government spying programs. it takes it really seriously. it does everything in a classified, secret skiff, but

. >> warner: now, equally startling was your companion poos, what the district court judge, reggie waltonid to you about the fisa court's authority when you asked him about this. explain that a little more. >> so he's the chief judge of the secret spy court, the foreign intelligence surveillance court, that is supposed to be the lynchpin for the checks and balances on our government spying programs. it takes it really seriously. it does everything in a classified, secret skiff, but it's a diligent careful court. what he essentially said was there are practical limitations on what we can do and we must trust the government to report to us these violation because we can't independently, with our resources, ferret that out. >> warner: and why can't the court fer theatout, verifying the information independently? >> well, there are the obvious issues of resources. i mean, this is a court with a number of judges who all have plenty of busy dunkin' donutses themselveses -- reggie walton has a very busy docket himself-- and they have a very busy staff. soso those lawyers receive the information

district judge reggie walton this is what he said the fisc the foreign intelligence surveillance court is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the court the fiskars not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance and in that respect that this is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing government compliance with its orders what is it about the foreign intelligence surveillance court that prevents it from being that necessary oversight well it's interesting that they say they're in the same position as a normal court because. you very likely are in the same position but things don't play out the way that they would in a normal court in a court you would issue a surveillance order be it a warrant or some other undocument that allows police law enforcement to go out and conduct surveillance of an individual and eventually that individual will be supposedly brought into court and presented with the evidence against him or her and allowed to challenge the gathering of that evidence under the fourth amendment under leg

now, according to judge reggie walton, the fisa court is forced to rely on the government and the accuracyrmation they provide to report its own actions. translation? the nsa repeatedly broke our privacy rules, blames computers and programming errors, but the truth is more than 63% of these so-called errors, thousands of them, were not computer errors but instead were overbroad searching of terms as well as not following standard procedure, as well as training issues which means, they are literally breaking the law thousands of times and here's a kick in the ear. the fisa court didn't even know about one of the government's collection methods. which they hid from the court. and as soon as the court found out about it, ruled it unconstitutional because it was. but don't worry. the president is not interested in spying on americans. >> i want to make clear once again that america is not interested in spying on ordinary people. >> the operative word there, interested. he didn't say we're not spying on american people. he said we're not interested in spying on american people. now, edward snow

. >> one of the few non- government lawyers to appear fisa court -- a reggie walton had questions. a letter from the coalition of communications companies advocacy group for transparency. ofetter from a coalition civil liberty and privacy groups. a group supporting the fisa accountability protection act. these are all being placed on record. if there are no further questions, i think all four of you. i would thank all four of you. i know you spent a lifetime -- preparing for this i know you a lot of time have a lot of other things to be doing. thank you for taking this time. wewill start on the next panel. panel. 12:30. back. and preside butwe will call up the northern district of ohio. james carr. of the civilector liberties union, george baker. i thank you all. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> on cspan today, "washington journal"is next. then live coverage of today's house session with more debate on limiting epa regulation is and in about 45 minutes, we will talk about the republican agenda in con

. >> judge reggie walton is the chief judge of that court. he's been around here for years. a very law and order type judge who follows the law. i don't imagine he's going to be particularly happy. he gave a statement tonight in which he said, the fisa court is forced to rely upon the accuracy out of the information provided to the court. if the government is lying to the court, the court essentially becomes sort of a rubber stamp. that's a terrible thing in terms. if you're supposed to oversee the constitutionality of something. he goes on to say that the fisa court does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance. they are in position as any other court when it comes to government compliance with this order. the way i read that is we have this powerful court because the information is being provided to him. >> two things, one, if the court needs more help, more support, if it needs more laws or more money, it ought to ask specifically for what it needs to do to protect american citizens. it's been given a responsibility under the law, and it it should make

district judge reggie walton had this to say recently in "the washington post."e fisc, meaning the court, is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the court. so the nsa brings all its information to the court and says, hey, here's our information. and they have got no way to independently know whether that information is correct or complete. and let's face it, spy agencies want to spy. it's what they do. they want to keep us safe. and the more the better for them, we understand that. >> that's right. and sometimes the nsa folks come after the fact to the court and say hey, court, here's what we say happened. here's what we believe happened. just approve it retroactively. so here's what i'm saying. you need to get advanced approval for even a query. certainly you need to get probable cause for any kind of content information. but even querying a phone number, what number did it call, you should have to go to the court first. second, to your other point, we should have somebody at the court whose job it is, whose responsibility it

. >> one of the few non-government lawyers to appear before the fisa court -- a letter from reggie walton had questions. a letter from the coalition of communications companies advocacy group for transparency. a letter from a coalition of civil liberty and privacy groups. a group supporting the fisa accountability protection act. these are all being placed on record. if there are no further questions, i think all four of you. i know you spent a lifetime preparing for this i know you have a lot of other things to be doing. thank you for taking this time. will start on the next panel. -- we will start on the next panel. we will stop until 1230 -- is 12:30. senator blumenthal will come back. we will call up the northern district of ohio. george baker. i thank you all. >> on c-span, the director o [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] before they left the amount those to change the fisa court. some of the biggest changes since it was set up ready five years years ago. richard blumenthal of connecticut, ron wyden of ore

. >> the washington post has also published a rare comment from reggie b walton. he said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often government surveillance breaks rules that protect americans privacies. the nsa responded in a statement that read in part -- for more we're joined by alexander abdo. the response of the nsa? >> it is truly shocking they are violating the surveillance laws thousands of times every year, effectively about seven times a day. in part because these laws are permissive. these aren't laws that impose meaningful restrictions. they essentially allow the nsa to collect vast amounts of information inside the united states and as we communicate internationally. the fact there are violating these very permissive laws is truly shocking. really disclosures undermine the intelligence community's primary defense of these programs, which is that there heavily regulated and overseeing. we know that is simply not true. congress is not been able to effectively oversee the nsa. now that we know the fisa court, the nsa is not able to -- in