Massie and John Conyers on NSA spying, part 1

Aug 2, 2013 · 12:49 surveillance fourth-amendment

With Rep. John Conyers on Democracy Now, Massie argues the bulk phone-record program is illegal and that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should resign.

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this is democracy Now democracynow.org the waren peace report I'm Amy Goodman President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with a group of top lawmakers
on Thursday to discuss growing concerns about the National Security agency's broadening surveillance Powers the meeting occurred just hours after Russia
granted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden temporary Asylum for a year Snowden was the source behind a number of recent leaks about the nsa's ability to conduct
surveillance across the globe most recently The Guardian newspaper revealed the existence of a secret program called X key score that gives NSA analysts
realtime access to quote nearly everything a typical user does on the internet including emails chats and browsing history The Guardian has also
revealed the US government has paid more than $150 million to the British spy agency gchq over the past three years to
quote secure access to influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programs on Thursday White House Press Secretary Jake Carney criticized Russia
for granting Snowden Asylum we are extremely disappointed that the Russian government would take this step despite our very clear and lawful requests in
public and in private to have Mr Snowden Snowden expelled to the United States to face the charges against him Mr Snowden
is not a whistleblower he is accused of leaking classified information and has been charged with three F felony counts
and he should be returned to the United States as soon as possible where he will be accorded full due process and protections this move by the Russian
government undermines a long-standing record of law enforcement cooperation uh cooperation that has recently been on the upswing since the Boston Marathon
bombings Russia's decision to Grant Edward Snowden uh Asylum comes at a time when the White House is coming under
intense criticism from an unusual Coalition of Democrats and Republicans over the NSA surveillance programs last week the house nearly passed a measure
that would have prevented the NSA from using the Patriot Act to collect phone records of individuals who are not under investigation the measure failed by a
narrow 2117 to 205 margin the bill was written by Republican Congress member Justin Amash and Democratic
congressmember John both of Michigan meanwhile a group of lawmakers including Republican Congress member Todd Rita of Indiana and
Democratic Congress member Adam Schiff of California have introduced a bill entitled the ending secret Law act this would require public disclosure of
opinions from the foreign intelligence surveillance Court we go now to Capitol Hill where we're joined by two Congress members Democrat John coners of Michigan
and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky who co-sponsored the Amash kanur amendment to limit NSA surveillance we welcome you
both to democracy Now um let us begin with Congress member John Conor you were the uh sponsor of this amendment you
co-sponsored with Congress member Amash Republican of uh Michigan why now what is it that you're calling
for well we're calling for an end to this metadata of uh phone numbers of everybody in the
United States of America uh without any regard for uh a criminal investigation
going on or anything else Amy the point that we're uh aiming at is to have relevance which is written into the
section 25 of the Patriot Act be observed and and and uh adhered to uh
which it wasn't because what they're doing is creating a hay stack in which to put a needle Congress member Massie um the
Republicans and Democrats are not usually known for working together these days in Washington now this was nearly passed uh this amendment talk about your
concerns around NSA spying my concerns deal with the oversight of the programs and uh the
reporting to Congress and the reporting to people in March we had the Director of National Intelligence come to Congress to the Senate and tell us that
this program did not exist yet last week we had the head of the NSA here lobbying to fund the program and so what we need
is more oversight they can't both maintain that the program doesn't exist or tell us lies in Congress and then ask us to fund them specifically what we
need is more visibility into the fisa court rulings we understand the need for secrecy and ongoing investigations but we need to know how the fisa court is
interpreting the laws that congress has written we need oversight over that from Congress and we need redacted and Declassified versions of those fisa
court rulings for the public uh Congressman Massie what are your thoughts about Russia granting temporary Asylum to Edward Snowden who really
started this ball rolling by revealing what um what the intelligence officials of this country from Keith Al Alexander
to James Clapper have long denied but now admitted they weren't telling the truth about that the US is spying on uh American citizens well clearly his disclosures
have changed the course of of human history really and I think these initial disclosures were a service to our country because now we're having this
conversation and we wouldn't be having this conversation I can't speak for Mr snowden's Act actions now he's basically
a person looking out for his own life at this point uh but what he did initially was a service to our country we need to
facilitate a way for whistleblowers to do that in in a better fashion and I don't think our current
whistleblower U laws would have provided for him to do what he's done in a in a better fashion so I'd like to see some reform there as well do you think Russia
was right to Grant him temporary Asylum um I'm not going to comment on on what Russia should have done with Mr
Snowden but do you feel that Mr Snowden did the right thing I think initially he did and now it it would be hard for me to fault his
actions at this point he's a person who fears for his life and uh so you know he's he's doing what he can I think to
stay alive at this point I want to turn to and I don't by the by the way I don't I don't think our government really wants to try him it would be a difficult
trial and I think more more things would be disclosed in the process of the trial so it's not clear to me that we've actually done everything we could to get
him back here and try him there there may be another story there as well Congress member kanur do you think uh NSA whistleblower uh Edward Snowden did
the right thing well I think that he was overzealous and probably didn't he's
he's clearly broken some laws uh for which they now the government wants to prosecute him for uh but
inadvertently he's revealed to us a whole area of secrecy and activity with telephone
collections uh and other things that are now being revealed that would not have been revealed otherwise can can I just
add that some people say he should have come to a congressman with this information but there are actually probably 20 uh or 30 congressmen that
already knew about this program and if he had went to them I think we wouldn't be having this discussion and he may already be in jail without the
disclosure happening I want to turn to President Obama during an interview with Charlie Rose in June uh President Obama dismissed fears the nsa's bulk
collection of metadata could potentially be abused the very fact that there's all this data in bulk it has the enormous
potential for abuse because they'll say you know you can when you start looking at metadata even if you don't know the names you can match it up if if there's a call to a oncologist and it's a call
to a lawyer and you can pair that up and figure out maybe this person's uh dying and they're writing their will and you can yield all this information all of that is true except for the fact that
for the government under the program right now to do that it would be illegal we would not be allowed to do that uh Congress member Kanye is your
response well of course it would be illegal that's that's the whole point that's being made is that uh we're not
using relevancy uh in this matter at all and that's part of the statute uh unless
uh there is relevancy considered uh uh we're we're on fishing Expeditions which
are improper and probably illegal uh now having said that uh we we've been
offered a peak into what we didn't know anything most of us didn't know anything about and so uh I think we should look
at at more transparency uh the makeup of the fisa Court as you know Amy the uh most of
those are are uh chief justice Roberts handpicked uh appointees to the court and I think that there's going to be a
lot of followup and more legislation and oversight than there's ever been before I mean the Obama Administration brought out the Heavy Hitters and I was
wondering uh Congress member Thomas Massie and Congress member John kanur if you could describe what the scene was like on the legislation uh that you uh
Co sponsored Congressman Conor with Congressman Amash I mean you had the head of the NSA you had intelligence Chief James Clapper uh coming to the
house members to say defeat this and yet it was so close well it was uh seven votes would have made the difference and
to be honest we didn't know that we were that close to Victory I had sent out Dear colleague letters uh urging that
Mas kanu's Amendment be supported uh and they were panicked by it uh it it it was
a a signal that even in in the partisanship that goes on too much around here that there there are people
willing to say enough is enough the uh law isn't the Patriot Act isn't being followed I didn't support the Patriot
Act but but the Patriot Act would have gone down if we had known that this was going to be part of its program I you know on the on the floor of the house
you had the House Majority Leader you had the speaker of the house and the House minority leader all got up in a in really unprecedented fashion and spoke
you know in favor of keeping these NSA programs going and I was more optimistic I think than than my colleague here that it could pass I think the the strong
that broke the camels back was when the president came out and I'm not blaming the Democrats because more of them voted uh in favor of the Constitution and
freedom on this issue but really when the president came out and gave that extra little nudge I think it hurt us on the on the Democrat side but I would
defer to my colleague on that more of his members voted the right way on this issue than my members oh we're going to break and then come back to this discussion we're talking to two Congress
members Republican Congress member Thomas Massie of Kentucky democratic Congress member John Conor is ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee um they are in Washington DC at the
capital stay with us [Music]

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