senator susan collins a member of the senate intelligence committee says it was carried out by hackers based in china. china called the accusations irresponsible. u.s. office of personal management is offering credit monitoring and identity insurance offered to anyone affected by the attacks. >>> the country's prime minister tweeting that the government will not accept extreme proposes. our people have suffered enough he says during the past five years, hashtag greece. ashley webster is following all the latest developments on greece. he joins us live from the newsroom. good morning to you, sir. what now? >> oh, my gosh, it is like groundhog day on this story. could this be a final act in the long-running soap opera, as the greeks turn. greece told the imf it will delay the $139 billion debt repayment and bundle all four payments together. the athens government has until june to pay $1.6 billion in total. that is the same day that the bailout deal with the e.u. and imf runs out. greece's money also running out. of course european creditors saying fundamental differences remain between

this is susan collins. may i ask who is calling? lo chairman collins, this is sam dewy from your staff. >> are you calling from the i.r.s.? >> no, senator i'm actually over here. ( laughter ) >> reporter: phone carriers do have access to technology that would enable them to block many robocalls on behalf of all their customers, but most carriers haven't implemented it. missouri democrat claire mccaskill. >> if they came out with an ad, "we're going to block robocallsing, "i mean i don't think they could handle the business they would get. >> reporter: the f.c.c. is working on a proposal that would eliminate any legal barriers for phone companies who want to selectively block robocalls from for their customers. when the companies want to invest in that technology remains an open question. >> pelley: coming up next, a desperate call to 911 as floodwaters rise. work around asbestos-containing gaskets and packing? the garlock bankruptcy may affect your rights even if you do not presently have an asbestos-related disease. garlock's produc

this is susan collins. may i ask who is calling? >> hello, chairman collins.is sam dewey from your staff. >> are you calling from ther? >> no, senator. i'm actually over here. [ laughter ] >> the consumers union has been pressuring phone companies to offer free robo call blocking technology but the companies say it would violate current law. so the ftc will vote next week on proposed new regulations to clarify the law and possibly end those unwanted robo calls forever. coincidentally the fcc put paypal and ebay on notice for the fine print in their agreement implying the company has the right to contact you via robo calls and spam text without your consent. paypal says they weren't going to spam you and they were going to use it for fraud alert. >> if the phone rings and it's not my immediate family or friend i don't want to answer. >> i have a robo call that calls every day for months this has gone on robo call. i see the caller id. so i think -- i never pick it up. i think the robo is a dodo. i'm not there. i don't pick it up. they don't get it. >> hopefully

. >>> three republican -- senators jeff blake, susan collins and pat roberts sat down with cuba foreign minister talked about furthering normalizing reelss between the two countries, the obama administration has lifted some travel and trade restrictions already, but for full economic ties to be restored congress would have to lift an empty bar go that's been in place since 19 ask 60. >>> lemonade day weekend continues, hundreds of folks visited the original alex lemonade stand in wynnewood. that's where little alex was a student, it's the 15th firesides of her first fund raiser alex's jay scott thanks everyone for supporting the cause. >> started in our front yard really grown into something really amazing and it wouldn't have been possible without all of you helping volunteering coming out every year we rely appreciate that. >> thursday here at cbs3 we held our 9th annual telethon benefiting alex lemonade stand foundation and it was a record breaking day, we're proud to report in 14 hours we raised near 3 million dollars thank you so much you can see the inspirational stories of alex a

republican senator susan collins of maine says it is clear this is an extremely sophisticated attacknd that a strong response so needed. >> if a foreign country can invade opm, apparently pretty easily, and steal the data of 4 million federal employees, just think with a determined adversary could do to our critical infrastructure. they could cause widespread death and destruction, and that's what i'm most can concerned about. >> republican senator and presidential candidate lindsey graham says the breach quote, may turn out to be yet another example of america being walked over. he goes onto say thethe obama's administration failures continue to pile up. i fear a cyber pearl harbor is increasably more likely if we do in the invest in the infrastructure to protect our nation. and the hackers had the national security national expanding the search. the obama administration expanded intelligence searches for computer hacking in 2012. the justice department lawyers wrote secret members permitting them to spy on internet cable without warrants. the report is based on documents leaked by

susan collins said we should have had a tougher cyber security law to prevent things like this. she seems to think that this points to a country, namely china, that's what the obama administration is saying. because it was so extremely sophisticated and she points out what valuable information this could be for a country like china. she also says that a strong response, retaliation by the united states is warranted here. this is such a huge amount of information. we're also hearing from mark warner of virginia. the democrat who's on the intelligence committee. he said that's a pattern here of the federal government failing to protect the information of its workers and that this is an escalating threat. richard burr, a republican on the other side from north carolina, says that the government needs to be a lot more proactive here. they can't just notify people after the fact which by the way they're sending out notices to those 4 million workers. now, we have got a lot more information on the nbc washington app. if you down load that, you can get more information about the breach

. >> susan collins is a manufacturing engineer who heads up a non- profit recycling institute. >> once materials get mixed together too much, like glass shards ending up in paper, or plastic bottles ending up in the paper stream or aluminum cans ending up in the plastic stream, all of that is detrimental to recycling. >> sorting seems to be a massive component. >> there are multiple compositions of plastic... when these different plastics are blended together then the recycling becomes difficult to impossible. >> that is exactly what's happening at the puente plant. that means a bottle won't be turned back into another bottle. but instead it will go on another journey, into the secondary plastic market. >> one of the myths is that once you place a water bottle in a blue recycle bin it can actually be made back into a water bottle again -- the technology is there, why isn't it being done more? >> i cant really speak to the industry of what happens after you know, the water bottle leaves our facility - we just make sure that the containers that come in here are recovered as much as possi

senator susan collins says it's another case of a foreign power successfully probing our defenses and targeting the kind of data that identifies people with security clearances. virginia democrat mark warner called it a troubling pattern of failure. quote, we cannot afford to keep drag our feet in addressing the escalating threat posed by hackers out to steal personal information and the fbi released a statement saying jumping to conclusions and making a hypothetical accusation is not responsible and counterproductive. they say the attacks are hard to track and identifying the source can be difficult. at the live desk, i'm chris lawrence. >> stay with news 4 and washington.com for continuing coverage on this story and be sure to open the nbc app for precautions on how to avoid becoming a victim. >>> take a look right now at a live picture from the storm team 4 radar. as you can see the rain is still coming down on some of us, but chief meteorologist doug kammerer says there's a change coming our way. >> we've seen rain every single day need to see some sunshine, haven't cbs that at al

five republicans voted no, senator susan collins, ted cruz, rand paul, jeff sessions and richard shelby. the senate also approved a related bill that gives assistance to american workers who lose their jobs because of such trade deals. that bill heads to the house for a vote tomorrow. >>> president obama today ordered changes in our longstanding hostage policies as expected. president issued an executive order stating that families of american hostages can now pay ransoms to terrorists without fear of criminal prosecution. the federal government is still not allowed to pay ransoms but government officials can help facilitate communications on behalf of families. critics say this empowers, emboldens and incentivizes radical islamist terrorists to capture and hold more americans against their will. 6.5 million americans living overseas. >>> turning to the controversy over official displays of the confederate flag in the wake of the south carolina church massacre. alabama governor robert bentley today ordered the removal of four confederate flags from a memorial at the alabama state capito

this is susan collins. >> hello, senator collins, it's sam dewy from your staff again. >> sam this is getting old. this time sam is pretending to be from the department of justice. and he's just demonstrated how easy it is to spoof multiple phone numbers, not just the irs the department of justice and virtually any other official sounding number. and he's also demonstrated just how annoying these repeated calls can be to the consumer. so, sam, i'm turning off my ringer now. this is a serious problem. it would be one thing if the real number were showing up on the hard line id screen. then callers might have some chance of protecting themselves by simply not answering the phone as we've advised in many of our hearings. but when you see the irs or your local police department's number or the fbi's number showing up on your screen, you're going to answer that call. i wish senator mccaskill were here right now. she will be coming. >> i'm here. >> so you managed to miss my very exciting opening statement which had two spoofed calls during it. >> oh, darn. >> but you're here for the praise

some are saying we should have changed the law a long time ago, like susan collins. republican on the intelligence committee. she says that this is long overdue. she's also warning that this could be valuable information to countries like china even though china is denying it. also we're hearing from democrat mark warner of virginia also on the intelligence committee. he says there's a pattern here of the government failing to protect the information of the people who work for it. he calls it an escalating threat. and that's not just coming from democrats. republican richard burr of north carolina says that the government needs to be a lot more proactive. not notifying people after the fact which by the way is what that i'll start doing on monday. you can find out more about this on our nbc washington app. you can download that app and get more information about how to monitor your own personal information. your financial data and how to avoid becoming a victim. >> tracie potts on the hill for us thank you. >>> it's now 6:35. players on the redskins are reacting afte

. >> reporter: republican senator susan collins, a member of the senate intelligence committee, said the breach was yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and appears to be identifying data with people with security clearance. they say the high level of organization also points to a nation state and the likely backing have chinese military units such as plm6938 housed in this suburban office in shanghai. they're used for advanced persistent threats used to hurt them covertly. that's what happened at opm. they believe it was hacked because it's a soccer target than the nsa or defense department. the question is whether employee intelligence information was stolen. >> thank you. >>> how damaging was the attack and what can we do about it? we invited two congressional experts to answer those questions. peter king and from california, adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. je gentlemen, i want to take you back to what president obama said about hacking in february. here he is. >> the wiber world is sort of the wild, wild west and to som

we're hearing from susan collins on the intelligence committee who said the information, names social security, birth dates, could be valuable to countries like china and that's who's suspected in this. she is urging a strong response. we're hearing from mark warner, democrat, of virginia. who is accusing the government of a pattern of failure to protect the information of its workers. he calls this an escalating threat. and it's not just democrats. republicans like richard byrd of north carolina says the government needs to be more proactive, as opposed to the notifications after. we're expecting 4 million of those to do out starting on monday. >> thank you, tracie potts live on capitol hill for us. >>> our consumer reporter erika gonzalez said this is what youyou can do to protect yourself. opm is offering a free year of monitoring and take them up on them. ask to have a fraud alert put on your file. >>> 5:33. in prince george's county, police are trying to figure out why someone who -- someone shot an 18-year-old to death. the $25,000 reward is being offered for information on davo

susan collins on the appropriations committee said in cutting that home program that prevented them from making cuts across the board. we are trying to make the pitch that they are doing this as painlessly as possible. it is just not in line with some other realities. greta: what are they looking at? what legislation is pending? emily: one of the issues is hud is planning to write a new rule that says what committees need to do to consider fair housing. how race is a factor in housing patterns how they have discrimination in their communities. essentially trying to defund this. there have been some explicit attention where part of congress is trying to undo -- it will be a substantial part of the new rulemaking coming out of it. jon: they're working on a proposal to restructure hud putting on these programs in different directions. another thing castro touched on to his fannie and freddie. we don't know what the future high -- future finance housing system is going to look like. it looks like it is going to the end of the next administration. greta: what is being talked about, dealing wi

. >> susan collins said the breach was another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances. former intelligence officials say the attacks high level of organization and points to a nation state and likely backing of chinese military units such as pla 61398 housed in this nondescript office in shanghai. known for advanced persistent threats designed to harvest information covertly and not kriple systems. that's exactly what happened. cyber security analysts believe it was hacked because it is a softer target than. nsa. one big question is whether employee information was also stolen. >>> how damaging was the attack and what can we do about it? we've invited two congressional experts to answer those questions. republican pete king of new york a member of homeland security committee. and from california adam schiff. gentlemen, i want to take you back to what president obama said about hacking in february. here he is. >> the cyber world is sort of the wild wild west. and to some degree we're

senators jeff blake, susan collins and pat roberts all sat down with the vice-president and foreign ministerthey have discussed normal icing relations between formally estranged countries. the obama administration lifted some travel and trade restrictions already but in order to restore full diplomatic and economic relations between u.s. and cuba, congress will to have lift an embargo that has been in place since 1960. >>> is there still much more to come on "eyewitness news" this morning coming up next, we will check with face the nation's john dickerson for a look at today's at longhorn what's in season doesn't last. we make sure of that. introducing longhorn's new grilled tastes of summer. the smoky garlic outlaw ribeye the hickory salt crusted new york strip or our grilled citrus salmon all with garden fresh hand chopped salad tonight only at longhorn steakhouse. you cant fake steak. and for lunch try our new tavern steak sandwich. or get any of our steakhouse lunch combos starting at $7. face the nation is coming your way later on this morning here at 10:30 on cw. 36789 joining us live,

susan collins backed him up. if harry reid hadn't like -- >> why won't they point the finger? are they afraid to point the finger at china afraid of retaliation? >> yes. because if the united states retaliates china has said any retaliation by the united states will be considered an act of war against china. so they are sort of pinning us back like this. and it's a problem. they do have one of the most effective cyber warfare units in the world. only maybe the russians can beat that. >> no we're good. we spy, too. >> okay. >> you know what's they have? our debt. that's what they have. >> they can't do anything about that. >> they play games with our debt they would screw themselves more than us. >> but here's the question. why are we always worried about other people? okay. so we have a good offense. we have a lot of information probably on the chinese, the russians whoever else is spying on us. why don't we build that defense? why are we so vulnerable to all these -- >> correia, china, who else. any comers can find the way in. >> breaking news chinese hackers are responsible

susan collins backed him up. if harry reid hadn't like -- >> why won't they point the finger? are they afraid to point the finger at china afraid of retaliation? >> yes. because if the united states retaliates china has said any retaliation by the united states will be considered an act of war against china. so they are sort of pinning us back like this. and it's a problem. they do have one of the most effective cyber warfare units in the world. only maybe the russians can beat that. >> no we're good. we spy, too. >> okay. >> you know what's they have? our debt. that's what they have. >> they can't do anything about that. >> they play games with our debt they would screw themselves more than us. >> but here's the question. why are we always worried about other people? okay. so we have a good offense. we have a lot of information probably on the chinese, the russians whoever else is spying on us. why don't we build that defense? why are we so vulnerable to all these -- >> correia, china, who else. any comers can find the way in. >> breaking news chinese hackers are responsible

. >>> yesterday, republican lawmakers met with cuban leaders in havana a cuba jeff blake susan collinsts said she sat down with the cuban foreign minister and vice-president, and discussed normal icing diplomatic relations between the two countries. thinks the first all republican delegation to go to cuba since washington and cuba announced new diplomatic relations in december. >>> well, for most parents having a young child means you take a lot of pictures but for one florida girl she's the one snapping the shots these days. madison harrison began at the age of three and she was snapped photo picks on her mother's smart phone. now she's called a prodigy. she has her own business called photos with madison. she told reporters whom she most like to photograph. >> the president with his family, that would be so awesome. >> well, in addition took a photographer little madison wants to go to harvard and cure cancer. >>> there you go. >>> still to come on "eyewitness news" you can call it a fairy tail wedding a bride to be in the fight for her life gets the call that changed everything, hea

so susan collins backed him up. but the administration still isn't saying. if harry reid hadn't. >> we know. >> are they afraid to point the finger at china? they're afraid of retaliation? >> yes, yes, yes. and if the united states retaliates china said any retaliation by the united states will be considered an act of war against china. so they're sort of pinning us back like this. and it's a problem. because they do have one of the most effective cyberwarfare units in the world. only maybe the russians. >> we're good. we spy too. >> that's what they have. >> but they can't do anything about it. >> i don't know about that. >> they play games with our debt. >> we're in a very vulnerable place because of that. >> here is a question. why are we always worried about -- so we have a good offense. we have a lot of information probably on the chinese, the russians, whoever else is spying on us. but why don't we build that defense? why are we so vulnerable? korea, china, who else? any comers? >> breaking news the chinese hackers are responsible for this. i just was

senator susan collins had this to say about the unprecedented incident. >> this was an extremely sophisticatedon state. we're still evaluating exactly how serious the breach is but if it does involve the compromising of the personal records of 4 million americans, i certainly think that a strong response is warranted. >> well china, meanwhile, is firing back dismissing the allegations. >> without further investigation, you jump to a conclusion so quickly. we think it's not scientific, and it's not responsible. >> msnbc's kelly o'donnell joins me now, along with elise who covers for the hill. kelly, you spoke with senator collins. who exactly got hacked and what kind of information were they able to get? >> what she indicates based on her initial knowledge, this breach was substantial, perhaps the largest in american history. and that it was detected at a time when the department of office of management and budget personnel management those sorts of big departments, are undergoing some improvements to their cyber security. and one of the layers that's been added on to the -- to protect the fede

a similar resolution was introduced in the senate by senator susan collins. i also serk lated a letter to the house labor, health and human services subcommittee requesting robust funding for alzheimer's research at the national institutes of health. in the coming fiscal year. the letter was signed by a bipartisan group of 63 members of congress. i was pleased to learn that the subcommittee recently proposed a $300 million increase for alzheimer's research. as we pursue the goal of a cure for alzheimer's, we must also do everything we can do assist the patients, families, and care givers who are living with alzheimer's every day. that is why i'm introducing alzheimer's action now. a set of bills that together will have alzheimer's patients and their families promote public awareness and encourage voluntary contributions to research efforts. the various bills in the alzheimer's action now address different challenges presented by alzheimer's disease. the alzheimer's care takers support act authorizes grants to public and nonprofit organizations to expand train