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Curated research library of TV news clips regarding the NSA, its oversight and privacy issues, 2009-2014

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Primary curation & research: Robin Chin, Internet Archive TV News Researcher; using Internet Archive TV News service.

Speakers

Amy Goodman
Host and Executive Producer for Democracy Now
LINKTV 09/25/2014
Goodman: In Sweden, The Right Livelihood Awards have been announced for five recipients, including NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The head of The Right Livelihood Award Foundation Ole von Uexkull says Snowden was honored for exposing illegality by his own government. von Uexkull : We decided on five laureates this year and they all live up to the idea behind the award to offer real courageous, practical solutions to global challenges. Snowden is living up to this ideal in the same way that earlier laureates have when it comes to criticizing his own government as this government is breaking the law. Goodman: Snowden's prize will go toward his legal fund.
Amy Goodman
Host and Executive Producer for Democracy Now
LINKTV 09/25/2014
Goodman: Other recipients are Alan Rusbridger, Editor of The Guardian Newspaper, Pakistani rights activist, Asma Jahangir; Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong; and the American environmentalist, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and a lead organizer behind this weeks People’s Climate March in new York City. Handed out annually, The Right Livelihood Awards are widely known as the alternative Nobel Prize. The awards ceremony will be held in Sweden in early December.
David Brooks
Political Analysts on PBS Newshour and New York Times Op-Ed columnist
KQED 09/26/2014
Brooks: And the one thing I object to and this is parochial, is his (Eric Holder) incredibly aggressive assault on the press, The Associated Press reporters, the Fox News commentators going after the records and the phone records. That seemed to me appalling. That was of a piece of his national security approach.
Matthew Olsen
Former Counsel to the NSA, and Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center
WHYY 10/09/2014
Olsen: These programs were aggressive. They were designed to be aggressive, especially the metadata bulk collection, That has been essentially, the President said we're going to work to stop doing that. Rose: Do agree with the President on that. Olsen: yeah, I agree at this point. It should have been done-- shouldn't have been done. Everything we did was right-- nothing was done that we shouldn't have done. Rose: Did the President say he was going to stop it. Olsen: He did say that. Rose: Does that mean you shouldn't have been doing. Olsen: No. Rose: What is the reason to stop it? Olsen: I think the reason is the public outcry over that. Rose: We thought it was a good idea, and we are happy we did it, the only reason we are going to stop doing it is because the public seems to be up set. Olsen: I wouldn't be quite so glib. We're always trying to get this right had. This is my main point. Had there is lots of discussion, what is the right thing to do here. That program was one that was believed to be necessary by the intelligence community. But once it was revealed and the President made the decision to reform it, then we're going to move forward.
Matthew Olsen
Former Counsel to the NSA, and Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center
WHYY 10/09/2014
Rose: Is there any evidence that anybody lost their life because of the disclosures of Edward Snowden? Olsen: No, I'm not aware of anything that direct. That would be an extraordinary sort of example if there were anything like that. I think again look, what I'm concerned about is a drop in our ability to see these terrorists, as these plots unfold. I mentioned earlier our best chance of stopping an underwear bomb from getting on to an airplane not at the airport. It's when those plots are being hatched in places like Yemen. Rose: Intelligence. Olsen: Through intelligence collection, and that's largely through the collection and interception of their communications.
Matthew Olsen
Former Counsel to the NSA, and Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center
WHYY 10/09/2014
Rose: But there was such an outcry about Snowden and being called a traitor and all the things, accusations made, yet, that successor to Keith Alexander in testimony, I think, said literally downplayed the harm done by Edward Snowden. Olsen: Right. You know, Admiral Rogers the successor to General Alexander. My interpretation is, first, there has been harm, no doubt there has been harm. But-- Rose: Along the lines you were suggesting. Olsen: They changed how they communicate, made it harder for us to collect. And I would say another, and potentially more far reaching damage is the relationship with these service providers. The internet service providers and the telecommunications companies. Rose: They are less cooperative. Olsen: They’re less cooperative. That is a real paradigm shift from where we were several years ago when-- where if we went to a company with an order or a lawful directive, you know there was a presumption that that was something cooperation. Rose: Now they pushback. Olsen: And I think that’s changed.
James Comey
Director of the FBI
KYW 10/12/2014
Comey: The lesson is the importance of never becoming untethered to oversight and accountability. I want all of my new special agents and intelligence analysts to understand that portion of the FBI's history, the FBI's interaction with Dr. King, and draw from it an understanding of the dangers of falling in love with our own rectitude.
James Risen
NYT National Security Journalist
KYW 10/12/2014
Stahl: What happens when the demands of national security collide with the public's right to know. That dilemma is at the heart of the case of James Risen, a pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter for "The New York Times." Stahl: Risen was the first to break the story about the NSA's secret wiretapping program that monitored Americans' phone calls without a court warrant. He's been subpoenaed to divulge his confidential sources in a separate federal criminal trial. He appealed the subpoena all the way up to the Supreme Court, but the court turned down his petition. Now, if he doesn't name names, he could go to jail. Will you divulge your source? Risen: No. Stahl: Never? Risen: Never, No. basically, the choice the government's given me is give up everything I believe or go to jail. So, I’m not going to... I’m not going to talk.
James Risen
NYT National Security Journalist
KYW 10/12/2014
Stahl: He (James Risen) says the current standoff with the government began in 2004 over what would become the biggest story of his career, that would win the Pulitzer Prize-- the top-secret warrantless wiretap program run by the national security agency. Risen: It was called "no such agency." and it was this massive part of the intelligence community that almost no one ever wrote about. What they were supposed to do was spy on foreigners, electronic eavesdropping of foreign people overseas. Basically, what I found out about was they had suddenly turned this giant eavesdropping operation at the NSA onto the American people, in secret, and that's what the story was. Stahl: Were they actually listening in or just recording that meta-data? Risen: they were doing both. They had the content and they were getting the meta-data.
James Risen
NYT National Security Journalist
KYW 10/12/2014
Stahl: After 9/11, President Bush authorized the NSA to listen in on Americans suspected of ties with al Qaeda without a judicial warrant, as required by law. Risen: I get these people who start telling me, in the government and elsewhere, "there's this huge secret I can't tell you about." Stahl: Did they say they were upset about it, that it... Risen: Yes. They were tortured by what they knew. But they were frightened at the same time.
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