x. keyscore is the interface that allows an n.s.a. agent to do what amounts to a google search against your data and in many cases they're doing that search against the data they got from moodle so that is a google search in almost a very literal sense so when edward snowden said that he and other analysts came from their desk hack into someone's e-mail as long as they have an e-mail address it seems to point to this program where you just search an e-mail address and you have access to that so yes absolutely the data that they are looking for is. the contacts that you you know exchanged e-mail with the documents that you've exchanged with other people how that how that document got to you where it came from it's original author whether you ever used any kind of software or tool to protect yourself from this kind of surveillance and then whether you done that whether or not they can exploit your machine to defeat that defense mechanism so it's it's a it's a database that fingerprints almost everything that you do online i'm thinking a

x. keyscore is apparently how it is done snowden has leaked the n.s.a. so training materials where the agency boasts that the program is the widest reaching system for developing intelligence from the internet to the material also shows that the program operates from more than seven hundred servers and one hundred and fifty sites around the world so if prison was not enough now we learned about the existence of of this seemingly even more far reaching program these latest revelations contradict the n.s.a.'s claims that no analysts can look at the data without a warrant the n.s.a. says allegations of widespread on check them least access to innocent collection of data or simply not true these revelations come senior intelligence officials testified to the senate judiciary committee on wednesday releasing classified documents in response to snowden's earlier revelations on bulk collection of phone records and five surveillance court oversight. and the n.s.a. of course defense programs saying that these programs are authorized to collect in bulk certain dia

x. keyscore n.s.a. agents can tap into a whole range of internet communications using just the user name or e-mail address of the person they're trying to snoop his newest set of documents comes just as the senate judiciary committee begins a new set of hearings on the n.s.a. spying programs and has the potential to take the already explosive debate about the surveillance state to a whole new level since news about the n.s.a.'s programs first broke almost two months ago president obama and other high ranking officials have made it clear that that intelligence agency can not read the content of the e-mails without a warrant today's news suggests they've been lying to us for more on this i'm joined by shah had batar constitutional attorney and executive director of the bill of rights defense league and marc rum old staff attorney at the electronic freedom fund. head writer mark welcome to the program thanks for having me on tom thanks to both of you mark i briefly explained how keystone x. key score works

x. keyscore program that basically looked into what people were searching for online and five hundred million data connections here in germany were checked or were available to be checked by the n.s.a. now this all comes after a week in which we've seen angela merkel originally claimed that she only heard about n.s.a. spying through the media at then turned out that in fact germany was one of these major partners now the germans have an election coming up a big general election coming up here at the end of september and the german people are understandably upset by the amount of information of theirs that was being looked at whether edward snowden knew that he could be a big influence in the german elections when he decided to leak these things will never know but what's the certain is he definitely and the information he's brought forward will definitely be used in the upcoming weeks and months before that vote considering the involvement of germany and other e.u. countries in the n.s.a. spying program it begs the question whether this is a legitimate attempt to improve the previously of the

x. keyscore program that basically anybody who they were looking into they could find out exactly what was being searched online by that particular person and it's estimated around five hundred million data connections were being monitored every month by by the spying program here in germany alone so it's quite an extensive program and it comes this news comes out is quite embarrassing time for german chancellor angela merkel there's an election coming up in september the involvement of germany in the n.s.a. spying program is being used extensively by the opposition and what this essentially means is that what mrs merkel was saying before she either. well she didn't know what her own security services were doing or that perhaps she has misled the german people in what she said by saying that well germany wasn't involved so it's come out of quite an embarrassing time for her with the election coming up it's set certainly to be a major if. in the build up to that vote that takes place on the twenty second of september but germany it seems far more involved in the n.s.a. spying program than p

x. keyscore program was used to collect a huge volume of online traffic coming out of germany but german chancellor angela merkel earlier said she only found out about the n.s.a. snooping practices via the media. and the man who blew the lid on those surveillance operations edward snowden is now awaiting russia's approval of his temporary asylum request the fugitive american intelligence leaker could now be granted refuge for one year for now though he remains stuck in the transit zone of the moscow airport where he has been for over three weeks now if snowden gets the paperwork he'll finally be able to leave the airport and enjoy most of the rights of any russian citizen it is unclear how long he'll remain in the country though however to be allowed to stay in russia out of former n.s.a. contractor had to agree not to release any more of the that could harm the u.s. interests but swedish pirate party member a million. believes snowden was actually trying to strengthen democracy in his homeland. democracy is a form of governance but i think what you can tell from mr snowden's. excuse tha

x. keyscore program that basically anybody who they were looking into they could find out exactly what was being searched online by that particular person and it's estimated around five hundred million. connections were being monitored every month by the spying program here in germany alone so it was quite an extensive program this news comes out is quite embarrassing time for german chancellor angela merkel there's an election coming up in september the involvement of germany in the n.s.a. spying program is being used extensively by the opposition mrs merkel was saying before she either didn't know what her own security services were doing or that perhaps she has misled the german people in germany it seems far more involved in the n.s.a. spying program than perhaps they were let on before. the original classified documents released by american whistleblower on the run edward snowden showed that the united states had been closely monitoring europeans especially germans one german m.e.p. well as far as comparing the practice to the stars he is germany's infamous secret police the justice m

x. keyscore program was used to collect a huge volume of online traffic coming out of germany but german chancellor angela merkel earlier said she only found out about the n.s.a. snooping practices via the media. and the man who blew the lid on those surveillance operations edward snowden is now awaiting russia's approval of his temporary asylum request the fugitive american intelligence leaker could then be granted refuge for one year for now though he remain stuck in the transit zone of a moscow airport were he has been for over three weeks now. if snowden gets the paperwork he'll finally be able to leave the airport and enjoy most of the rights of any russian citizen it is unclear how long he'll remain and the country however to be allowed to stay in russia for mannus a contract there have to agree not to release any more leaks that could harm u.s. interests but swedish pirate party member a million years thought or believe snowden was actually trying to strengthen democracy in his homeland. form of governance but i think what you can tell from mr snowden's. excuse that it's not just

x. keyscore program was used to collect a huge volume of online traffic coming out of germany but german chancellor angela merkel earlier said she only found out about the n.s.a. snooping practices by the media. and the man who blew the lid on those surveillance operations at risk noted is now awaiting russia's approval of his temporary asylum request the fugitive american intelligence leader could then be granted refuge for one year for now though he remains stuck in the transit zone of the moscow airport where he's been for over three weeks now one snowden gets the paperwork he'll finally be able to leave the airport and will enjoy most of the rights of any russian citizen it is unclear how long he'll remain in the country though to be allowed to stay in russia and the fugitive acts and as a contractor had to agree not to release any more leaks that could harm the u.s. government but jim kill it from the open rides were hopes he'll resume releasing materials as soon as he can. hope it doesn't mean that he has to not talk about what the united states have been up to in broad policy term

how the government, using a program known as x keyscore can access emails, web browsing, private chatsalong with what we already knew, the meta data that tell them about telephone calls and other electronic communication. the "guardian's" len green-week-old told the story. >> the "guardian" published slides from what appeared to be an nsa presentation showing how x keyscore works. the government can access massive database of information about an individual's online act difficulties by simply mailing email addresses or other information into a computer-generated form. it suggests that the government can access the internet browsing activities of individuals on facebook, yahoo, twitter, myspace, even cnn.com. snowden has talked before about how the program could be misused. >> i sit at my desk certainly have the authority to wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge, to even the president, if i had a personal email. >> the national security agency issued a statement saying allegations of widespread unchecked analyst access to nsa collection data are simply not true.

and the fact that we are learning of the extent and sophistication, frankly -- >> x-keyscore which was revealed today is extraordinary and to have that out and to have people, citizens understand the degree to which these tools have leapt beyond what anybody dreamed is a good thing. it's unfortunate because as everyone is saying that it had to come as a result of an exposure. it makes it look bad from the get-go. >> right. >> oh, we're keeping a secret. >> it is bad. >> well, i'm not sure that's true. it's almost inconceivable to say the government would say, by the way, here's what we're doing without being forced to do it. ron widen, the senator democrat from oregon for the last two years has been saying -- he's on the intelligence committee. there's stuff going on, it's really, really bad, i can't tell you what it is. i want to have a debate. i want to have a debate. please let me have a debate, please, please, please. >> right. >> nobody else is willing to have this debate with him. >> we welcome it. >> declassifying information so it can be discussed with the public. now the pendu