the nsa physically intercepts the package, takes it from fedex or the u.s. mail service, brings it back to nsa headquarters, opens up the package, and plans a backdoor device on one of these devices, resealed it with factory seal and since it to the unwitting user who then provides internet service to large numbers of people, all of which is instantly redirected to the depositories at the nsa. >> today, glenn greenwald for the hour. all of that and more coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the u.s. has begun flying piloted surveillance missions overnight -- who nigeria as part of the search efforts for the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped last month. it is unclear how many planes are involved, but the state department says it is providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to the nigerian government. on monday, a nigerian officials said its government is exploring all options to rescue the girls from captivity. at the moment, we are with other parts of the world. these are part of

the nsa's secret war. this spring, general keith alexander, director of the national security agency, retired. it's a sign of how controversial his tenure was that if you type his name into google, they will suggest you might want to try keith alexander lie. now, it's true there's plenty that is controversial and perhaps even worth censoring. but often it seems the talk about the agency has shed more heat than light. that's why we wanted to talk to the people who were there. those who know what happened. what we found may surprise you. but first, the latest on the story that's shocked the nation. it seemed like things couldn't get worse for the national security agency after former employee edward snowden stole and then leaked a trove of america's most sensitive secrets a year ago. but things did get worse. a torrent of damaging stories. in august, it's revealed the agency has broken privacy rules thousands of times. a few weeks later, the black budget is published showing the nsa pays u.s. communication co

. >> the nsa, a secret agency in crisis. some politicians are exasperated. >> the credibility is seriously in doubt. >> the public is skeptical. >> we stand for freedom. (blee (bleep) oo >> and the press keeps pressing. >> you get it from foreigners and americans. >> we talk to the staunchest critics and staunchest defenders. >> he engineered the greatest hemorrhaging of american secrets in the history. >> we investigate the investigators. >> did somebody die? >> that is my greatest concern is we will not have the ability to protect our countries or allies because of the capabilities. >> the nsa's secret war, who is the enemy? >> this spring general keith alexander director of the national security agency retired. it is a sign of how controversial his tenure was. if you type his name into google they will suggest you might want to try keith alexander lie. it is true with secret nsa programs coming to light recently there is plenty that are controversial perhaps even worth sen soaring. much has shed more heat than life. which

the nsa adapted and moved on. onically the agency's lowest point up until then came a number of years later, precisely because of its greatest success, the fall of the soviet union. >> if you seek peace, tear down this wall. >> after the cold war ended, congress wanted the peace dividend. so they cut nsa's budget and nsa took money away from its research and development and put it into trying to keep their operations up and running. a lot of things going on at the same time. >> general michael hayden was director of the nsa from 1999 to 2005. >> as the soviet union collapses, we have a technological revolution going on over here and they both converged at a really inconvenient time for nsa. so after the fall of communism, it took a hit. >> all i know fra structure no longer valid. declining budgets and that's pretty much where nsa was in the mid-1990s and the late 1990s. we could not keep up with the volume, variety and velocity of modern communications. >> you say it's deaf -- the signals that you want to listen t

because we didn't know what the nsa knew about what he was doing. we didn't know what the chinese and hong kong governments knew about him being there. so we thought it was very possible that the door could be barged down at any moment. >> narrator: the guardian also sent a senior correspondent to vet their source. >> i asked him, do you mind if i tape the interview on an iphone? and as soon as he saw the iphone, it was like bringing out a microphone direct into the nsa headquarters. he was totally appalled. and he said, "get that out of the room as quickly as possible." >> narrator: even then, snowden still worried that someone might be recording them. >> he would often put a blanket over his head when he wanted to enter this computer system to prevent overhead cameras from picking up the passwords to the encryption. >> narrator: as snowden explained more about the tens of thousands of documents, macaskill listened carefully. >> i was sort of warming to the idea that, you know, this guy was for real. >> narrator: one of the first files they discusse

the news was. it wasn't coming out of nsa's computers. it was on the tv, because we had missed the entire event. >> this is a live picture. we are seeing the second... >> it was an enormous shock that you have this huge agency set up to prevent a surprise attack, and they learn about it on a $300 television set tuned to cnn in the director's office. >> narrator: at the white house, there was chaos. a near total evacuation. >> secret service bursts into the vice president's office, basically frog marches him by one arm and the seat of his pants into this deep underground shelter that was built to withstand nuclear war. >> narrator: almost immediately, cheney directed his lawyer david addington to prepare the case for the president to exercise his unilateral authority as commander in chief. >> david addington, principally the vice president, was interested in ensuring that the president's constitutional authority was used to its fullest. >> cheney says, "i want you to tell me what powers we're going to need, the president is going to need, t

edward snowden the nsa and the u.s. surveillance state. >> i think if you look at the surveillance abuses of the past, the principle question has always been on whom is the government spying domestically and for what reasons, which who are their targets. and that's the missing part of the puzzle in terms of the public reporting taking place. >> rose: who the target are. >> who specifically are the target domestically, u.s. citizens, domestic persons inside the united states. the investigation we're currently working on the and when the reporting we're doing is to enter that question in a very comprehensive way. >> rose: we conclude this evening with writer christopher buckley. >> i was once speaking at a civic event in ohio. they're very nice. they're much nicer than we are in the east, although they're very nice in the carolinas. and it was one of those 11:00 in the morning things. the audience, a civic auditorium of a thousand blue-haired ladies and silver-haired ladies. my host, who was a sweet sweet person introduce

the nsa has records. have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks from me raising concerns about the nsa's interpretations of its legal authorities. now, i have raised these complaints not just officially, in writing through e-mail to these offices and individuals, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues. in more than one office. i did it in ft. meade. i did it in hawaii. and many, many of these individuals were shocked by these programs. they had never seen them themselves. and the ones who had went, you know, you're right. these are things that are really concerning. these aren't things we should be doing. maybe we're going too far here, but if you say something about this, they're going to destroy you. do you know what happens to people who stand up and talk about this? >> what did you report? what was the response? >> so i reported that there were real problems with the way the nsa was interpreting its legal authorities. and the response

something like 70% of the overall budget goes to the nsa. ends up going to the functions of private corporations. this idea that there are these great whistleblowing procedures that he should've gone through the way the u.s. government is structured is to hide, not to eliminate secret wrongdoing by people in power. the best proof of that is that there are two democratic senators who sit on the senate intelligence community weapon going round the city and everywhere they can for years warning the public that there are these radical surveillance policies. the public would be stunned to learn about what it was that was being done. yet, those two senders do not -- senators do not have the courage to disclose these programs because the system is designed to gag even powerful senators when they discover the national security is doing something wrong. he knew he cannot go to people like them because they were impotent. the system ensures they are and they ensure that they are. the only way was to go to newspapers and ask them to publish it. host: a

isthe legal issue, the nsa operating in a pretty gray area. bahamas has been working in the last several years to sort of established statutes around communication intercepts emma but it is all in the works. a lot of countries around the world have existing standards regarding the interception of communications. that is not to say that this is legal under bahamian law. it does not seem to be. it seems to be illegal. but still, the bahamas is a bit behind some other countries in terms of rigorous standards. with respect to u.s. law, under , which therder 12333 nsa and cia uses to conduct surveillance abroad, there is a lot that analysts and agents can do. this could very well, under executive order, be illegal for the nsa to be doing. the more important question about what this means for u.s. cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies and the dea's operations abroad, this essential. intercept, lawful the very thing that allows the nsa access to these networks, is premised on the idea that you have a specific person that you are targeting

so they have some real concern about this eavesdropping that the nsa was doing. so that will be something she will be asked about as you see the two leaders come to the rose garden and speak to the media, this will come up, and her tone publicly may be a little bit more diplomatic that in private. >> and some people say the sanctions that the united states is waging against russia is the new way of waging war. you are a veteran washington watcher, have you ever seen a time when the lines between east and west were so blurred because there are so many competing economic interests scattered across the globe that it's difficult to impose sanctions on one country without hurting an ally? >> reporter: and so many of the trade agreements have opened up the borders to create that cross-border ability to get goods and services, and the thought of that of course is that it's harder to do sanctions. and the economies are -- are very connected at a time when many nations are still doing their own economic recovery process, it's not a time when many feel the ability to say we

that there are divisions in the nsa and teams in the nsa devoted to doing this. >> reporter: the nsa says the implication that the foreign intelligence collection is arbitrary and unconstrained is false. nsa's activities are focused on valid foreign intelligence targets. greenwald says he has thousands of documents and plans to reveal more on the intercept, a digital magazine whose parent company has a collaboration agreement with nbc news. >> several of the top, say, 5 or 10 are stories that are left to be told. one s that will really shock th world. >> reporter: green wald spoke with snowden 24 hours ago, but

it was developed by the nsa in 2009. it is variously sponsored through a number of subprograms which are controlled by the nsa's commercial solution center, which works with their secret partners. the nsa would not be able to function without their corporate partners that they rely on to gain access to communications networks. it is also cosponsored by the cia and the drug enforcement

the whole nsa scandal ban when james clapper went before the senate and was asked whether or not the nsa is mass collecting data about millions of americans, and he looked senators in the eye and said, no, sir. and then the very next -- the very first story we reported from snowden archives two months later prove the nsa was doing exactly that, which, the top national security official in the united states government, falsely denied to the nat and the public. so when you hear things like mr. snowden. -- not telling the truth when he says sitting at his desk he could have wire tapped anyone. i guarantee you that's exactly what the nsa analysts have the capability, and the evidence -- don't rely on my word or his. a program which we reported on

that got shoved out the door that nsa is free ranging on the servers of google and microsoft and yahoo, that it just was an uncontrolled nsa exploration of this data. that's just not wrong. now, that story was pushed out. the washington post was one of the ones who pushed it out. they corrected it on their website over several days. without notifying people the article had been changed. but, let's skip all that. let's just all assume that we can get to hard truth, that we can actually boil this down to what csec's doing here, and nsa is doing across the lake, and gchq is doing in great britain, and asd is doing in australia. even then you've got a problem. because even then you're walking into a movie theater late in the third reel, and you're looking at a scene, a snapshot of the third reel, and you're saying, "ah ha! the butler did it!" actually, you need to go back and look at the whole movie. you need to see what went on before. because if you know what went on before, you may have a different interpretation of what it is you think the butler is guilty of. there are three or four t

times and the guardian where you are reporting on the nsa scandal and the ed snowden leak.n the pulitzer prize for public service. (applause) and a post award for national security reporting. your new book is called no place to hide, edward snowden, the nsa and the-- surveillance state, are you looking for a place to hide? >> i'm in the. >> stephen: really? >> but if i were, there would be no one in this surveillance state, the title actually comes from frank church who investigated the surveillance state in the mid 70s and found something nobody knew which is that the nsa was collecting enormous amounts of communications. and what he said was this is an extraordinarily dangerous machine that has been building, if it ever turned around and aimed at the american people there would be no place to hide. a very mainstream democratic senator who served in world war 2 and to that's the title of the book becauses that is in fact what happened is the nsa has turned its apparatus on americans as well as the rest of the world. >> stephen: but we did not know the extent of that until

that got shoved out the door that nsa is free are ranging on the servers of google and microsoft and yahoo!. it is an uncontrolled nsa exploration of this data. that is just not wrong. now, that was pushed out. the "washington post" pushed it out. they corrected it on their web site over several days without notifying people the article hall beside changed. but let's just all assume we can get to hard truth, that we can actually boil this down to what csect is doing and nsa is doing and gchq in great britain and in australia. even then you have a problem because you're walking into a movie theater late in the third reel and you're looking at a snapshot of the third reel and you're saying, ah-ha, the butler did it! actually, you need to look at the whole movie. you need to into what went on before because if you know what went on before you may have a different interpretation of what it is you think the butler is guilty of. three or four things that happened, that nsa and all these organizations have tried to solve. the one was volume. how do you conduct intelligence to keep you safe i

that is the motto of the nsa. t's a motto for keith alexander when he was a general in baghdad because he wanted to direct that framework of surveillance as an enemy population in the middle of a vicious protracted war and that got imported like so many other abuses like detention without trial onto american soil it became the surveillance loss of the of the u.s. government and all other populations. there are all sorts of documents that are collected in the institutional mandate of the nsa. i did a debate in toronto to the former director of the cia under ocean when someone i presented him with that fact he was assuring the audience that it was limited and discriminating he was basically left to say it's a really difficult point but it doesn't mean collected all. collected all means collected all evidenced by the fact that there are billions with the b every single day of e-mails and telephone calls collected by the nsa and stored by the nsa from the american system throughout the world. there's one document in pa

it changes how the nsa operates and possibly how terrorists do business. re from randall pinkston. >> it was the most shocking revelation from edward snowden'strophy of stolen government secrets. that the national security agency are chronicles metadata, time and location of where the call was made. top intelligence officials and members of congress repeatly denounced snowden's allegations. >> going to school on u.s. intelligence sources methods and trade craft and the insights that they are gaining are making our job much, much harder. >> reporter: last week the first possible indication that american agencies were responding to snowden. the report that al qaeda is stepping up the pace of producing encryption software. in the six years before snowden's leaks, al qaeda reportedly released only go encryption tools. in the six months after snowden's revelations, there were six updates. helped glenn greenwald review snowden's secret documents. he says al qaeda's new encryption may in fact assist nsa. >> now these al qaeda operatives are making home made stuff

believe these disclosures have changed the nsa? they've certainly change the debate surrounding the nsa. i believe they will change the authority the nsa has as a result of congress. i think it made the nsa, for the first time since at least 9/11, question whether on not just because they have the capability to do something it means they ought to. >> do you believe it's changed the attitude of the president? >> i do. as is a serious question to the extent that president obama knew about the reach when angela merkel was revealed to be primary target of the agency. they were adamant he had no idea there was this level of arsenal civilized surveillance against allied leaders. >> would you find it surprising that he did not know? >> he did not know at the granular level every target that they choose but it must be the case after five years in office he had a pretty good sense of the reach of the nsa. >> at some point, you have to say as you get that. >> there has to be all sorts of indications in every presidential daily briefing that

the truth takes longer. [applause] >> alan? >> no. nsa gets american telephone providers, the billing records of american citizens. what happens to the billing records is actually really important. i didn't make this phrase of the but i'm going to use it. they are put in a lockbox. they are put in a lockbox at nsa. 20 people at nsa are allowed to access the lockbox. the only thing in this is allowed to do with the truly digital unit record data field sitting there is that when they have what's called a signal, a seat of a which a reasonable our digital suspicion that that seed number is a fully with al-qaeda, the role of a safe house in yemen, you've got pocket litter, there's the al-qaeda membership card, he's got a phone you've never seen before. gee, i wonder how this phone might be associated with any threats in the united states? so i'll be a little cartoonish about this at nsa gets to walk up to the transo transit and yel through the transom and say, hey, anybody here talk to this number i just down in yemen? and then this number, s

either for the nsa or against. and so we tried to balance our video on pro and antinsa clips and interviews so that we could try to achieve the balance feel that c-span wanted us to do. >> let go across the table to andrew, who is in tenth grade. his documentary, we the people, genetically modified, how did you come up with the topic and learn about student cam? >> i'd probably say i came across the topic on the internet, just simply threw watching youtube videos and stuff like that. but i figured it was really a great topic because unlike some of the other topics that of course are important, food is essential to life and transcends everything, and every requires food to live and a lot of people don't know whates being done to our food supply, and they just eat this food regularly without knowing what is inside it. i found that very concerning. so that's i would i chose the topic. >> what was the most challenging part? >> getting all the interviews and interviewing everybody, because since this was kind of a contro

the whole time, the nsa is doing exactly that. a government misleading the people, democracy is in peril and it is the role of journalists to make people aware. >> you don't necessarily occupy the high ground here. certainly something that american people have a right to know they're being told by the government that they are evil for doing the same things they are doing. >> does everybody do it? >> not everybody. is capable.one >> no one surveilled the internet and world communications to the extent of the united states. >> that definition may be about competence. others might do it and they do it in part. they may do more if they had the competence. >> nobody thinks that's buying in and of itself and all of its permutations is legitimate. it has always existed and always will. if the united states were targeting a traditionally recognized legitimate target, military officials, heads a foreign state, there would never have been anna edwards snowden, no controversy. it is the indiscriminate nature, the goal of the nsa as they colle

on the one hand, i've been work for nsa issues many years. and the difficulty is you don't have the instruments to make the public aware what is going on. but suddenly in my lap there were all the instruments that i could have every dreamed of having. at the same time i knew it was an enormous responsibility, to make the right decisions about how this information ought to be reported. >> much more of my interview with glenn greenwald coming up. the publication of the first document more than a year ago. mike viqueria has more. >> first defending the national security agency and trying to reassure the public they are not being spied on. trips to capitol capitol hill, there have been speechg and reports, a major a speech at the justice department over these revelations that broke over a year ago. it began when the directors of intelligence james clapper was caught frankly lying to congress about the existence of this program in response to a direct question by nart ron widen. unrelated piece of legislation back in july of 2013 in the house of re

calling the nsa release incomplete, snowden added, the fact is that i did raise such concerns both verbally and in writing and on multiple continuing occasions. as i've always said and as nsa has always denied. still the white house is challenging snowden's credibility. >> he was not trained as a spy. we have no idea where that assertion comes from. and has edward snowden done damage? he's done immense damage. >> reporter: and john kerry's

>> so i reported that there were real problems with the way the nsa was interpreting its legal authorities. and the response more or less in bureaucratic language was you should stop asking questions. and these are recent records. this isn't ancient history. i would say one of my final official acts in government was continuing one of these communications with a legal office. and, in fact, i'm so sure that these communications exist that i've called on congress to write a letter to the nsa to verify that they do. write to their office of general counsel and say, did mr. snowden ever communicate any concerns about the nsa's interpretation of its legal authorities? >> now about that last point there about the paper trail that snowden says exists within the n sarks.

the nsa has records. they have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks. oversight and compliance folks. >> what did you report? was the response? >> and the response more or less, in bureaucratic language was, you should stop asking questions. >> reporter: now under pressure from the senate intelligence chair and seven days after nbc first asked about snowden's claim, the nsa released one e-mail snowden wrote to a lawyer a year ago april, only weeks before he stole classified documents and fled. in it he raised a technical legal question, offering his opinion about which laws take precedence over others. the nsa lawyer answered in part the nsa lawyer answered in part "you are correct," adding, "please give me a call if you would like to discuss further." in a written statement today, the nsa said, the e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the office of general counsel address. "

>> i think there is a risk for some of these impending stories the nsa is angry about. i think by and large, the cost for the u.s. government to take action against me or other gennists is too high for them to be willing to inquire. >> the man at the center of a global debate, glenl greenwald talks about how his life has changed. n greenwald talks about how his life has changed. ney ney to something you did not do >> the truth will set you free yeah don't kid yourself... >> the system with joe burlinger only on al jazeera america >> now inroducing, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for suvivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now >>> surveillance, security, and the nsa, glenn greenwald joins

for an all german chancellor and memorable visit the white house just months after it revealed that the nsa spying on her. blundell stories coming. and oklahoma was the scene ever read but botched execution the state governor called for overview of the incense and the faith you think that lethal injection. more on that later and share. thirty if i can the island to friends or watching tv. midterm elections only have six months away pollsters are firing up the telephone lines to get a read on how the american feels about elected officials and more importantly how expects to both of them. at this point republicans hold the majority of seats in the house of representatives the things trooper to craft an authentic in the november elections republicans are expected to hold on to the house that need fixed me to pick up six seats to win control the senate. look at that. a new rasmussen national survey finds that fifty three percent of likely us voters think it's fair to say that neither party in congress is the party of the american people. it is up to forty seven percent last october overall it f

right outside the nsa. so i remember, i remember the tension of that day.emember hearing on the radio the planes hitting. and i remember thinking my grandfather who worked for the fbi at the time, was in the pentagon when the plane hit it. i take the threat of terrorism seriously. and i think we all do. and it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort of scandalize our memories to sort of exploit the, the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through to justify programs that had never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up and our constitution says we should not give up. >> in the spotlight tonight, the fugitive and the likes that are leading to new rules for spying. edward snowden's location in russia remains a secret. nbc's brian williams did sit down for the first american tv interview since snowden left the u.s. he says his leaks were good for our country and the nas failed to detail any specific ways the leaks harmed national security. and snowden

. >>> edward snowden is holding firm to his claim that he did blow the whistle about nsa abuses beforehe leaks. leaving a paper trail to prove it. his interview with brian williams. >> not just officially, in writing through e-mail, to these offices and these individuals, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office. >> under pressure the nsa after a year released one e-mail, the sole e-mail it found from snowden to nsa lawyers but snowden has fired back about that release telling the "washington post" today the picture painted by the nsa is incomplete. i'm joined now by jerry mabash

>> i think there is a risk for some of these impending stories the nsa is angry about. i think by and large, the cost for the u.s. government to take action against me or other gennists is too high for them to be willing to inquire. >> the man at the center of a global debate, glenl greenwald talks about how his life has changed. changed. ney >>> surveillance, security, and us. >> i want to talk about how this changed your personal life. i have a question from a viewer who asked about your partner david miranda being detained at heathrow airport and on facebook says a panel of uk judges that will detaining your partner while he was in transit was legal. are there any challenge he knows to that ruling in progress? >> it's on appeal, and, you know, part of what happened in the united states is the abuses of political power permeate the judiciary and the same is true in the united kingdom. >> ruling could get overturned but. >> you said you were a fan of all of the president's men. >> yeah. >> in that movie there are a number of scenes in which woodward and bernstein seem p

you know, they invited the nsa in. ey opened the door in one of these e-mails, they actuall actually--the general keith alexander discussed how the silicon valley firms, microsoft, dell, worked on addressing a have yoavulnerability of a softe program that kicks in when you start up your program. that's the type of vulnerability the nsa had been exploiting. we know about the documents released by edward snowdon. they have made themselves more vulnerable, but what we don't know what exactly were they showing with the nsa? what did the nsa have access to? the reason we don't know this is because these meetings that general keith alexander had been discussing in these two sets of e-mails, they took place in a classified setting. so they were classified briefings. the executives had security clearance, and they've been unwilling to address it. these e-mails shed rare light on what has largely been very secret discussions taking place for many years now. >> jason, if my memories serves me correctly many companies were outrage

you are either for the nsa or against. tried to balance our video on nsa.nsa and anti-an we wanted to achieve a balanced feel. >> let me go across the table to andrew, in 10th grade. your documentary is called "we the people: genetically modified." oni came across the topic the internet, through watching youtube videos. i figured it was really a great topic because, unlike some of the other topics that are important -- it transcends everything. everyone requires food to live. the fact that a lot of people do not know what is being done to our food supply -- they just eat this food regularly without knowing what is inside it, i found that very concerning. >> what was the most challenging part? >> probably getting the interviews and interviewing everyone. this is kind of a controversial topic, a lot of people were not camera.to tlak oalk on namely politicians, grocers. that made it more difficult to complete the project. ultimately, i think it turned out well. future" is about clean water in this country. how did you guys co

when was the nsa created and why? could we use the nsa to go after people taking our identities? created in nsa was 1952 by president truman. it was a cold war spying organization. it grew out of a long history of electronic eavesdropping the government was involved in the fourth civil war. telegraphs were intercepted. japanese code during the world wars. the chicago tribune leads that we broke their code. that could've done a lot of damage. turns out the japanese government did not read the chicago tribune. there is a long history to it. said, we thing you have more controls are intelligence than any other country in the world. every country in the world spies as much as it can. a lot of them spy on their own citizens without restraint. the main thing distinguishes the nsa, they have enormous technological capacities. they are able to do it more effectively and in a more sweeping wave in france and they do. there is a piece in wired magazine. the nsa is building the guest spy center. you can find that at the wired website. guest: it is in utah. the picture was in the newspaper. i