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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

John Brennan
Director of the CIA
CNNW 08/03/2014
Brennan: it's just amazing. Nothing can be further from the truth. when the facts come out of this I think a lot of people who are claiming there has been a tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong. Crowley: That is CIA Director John Brennan in March saying his agency did not spy on intelligence committee staffers. Turns out yes, they did.
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Angus King
Representative (I-ME), House Intelligence Committee
CNNW 08/03/2014
King: Well, it's shocking and it's particularly shocking because if you go back to the clips in the spring, candy, you'll see john Brennan, the chief of the CIA, the director of the CIA, saying this was absurd and nobody should make these kind of irresponsible charges, and all of those kinds of things and now the CIA's own inspector-general has confirmed that they did just that, that they went into the computer system that was supposedly separated and within the control of the senate committee and essentially fished around. They even created false identities to pretend to be senate staff members going into the computers. It was, it's not good. I mean, the more important thing is the report itself, but this certainly undermines the kind of trust that you got to have,
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Angus King
Representative (I-ME), House Intelligence Committee
CNNW 08/03/2014
King: When we do oversight of these agencies, which by the way, nobody else really watches, we're the only one watching these guys, we've got to be able to rely upon what they tell us. if we can't trust – Crowley: So is an apology from John Brennan enough? King: -- the information they're giving us, how do you do oversight? Crowley: Absolutely, so how do you do oversight? go ahead. King: Yeah, I don't think an apology is enough. And particularly because this had happened several times before. I think we've really got to have some serious discussions with John Brennan, find out what he knew about this when he was making those statements, what he knew about it at the time. I'm not calling for his resignation, but I'm pretty skeptical right now, because it really has undermined the trust between the committee,
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Angus King
Representative (I-ME), House Intelligence Committee
CNNW 08/03/2014
King: And if you go back to the report itself, candy, one of the key findings of the report is they weren't honest with us. They weren't honest with the Congress, they weren't honest with the President, the Secretary of State. They were misrepresenting this program and what it did and how effective it was, and you know, this is serious stuff. Again, because we're the only people that are overseeing this outfit, and if we can't trust what they're telling us, we got to talk seriously about what our other options are. Crowley: Well, so what are your other options? Because you have a director that either didn't know what was going on in his agency as it relates to the hacking into the computer system or he didn't tell the truth. so at some point, I mean, as you know, a number of our colleagues, republican and democrat, have called for his resignation. What is the alternative here?
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Angus King
Representative (I-ME), House Intelligence Committee
CNNW 08/03/2014
King: Well, I think the bigger question is how do we do our oversight more effectively, and we may have to embed people in the agency or have, create an office of oversight in the agency because it's just essential. The American people are relying on us to watch what's going on, and there's a bigger question, of course, which is relatively small committee with a small staff overseeing a $50 billion a year enterprise, the overall scope of the intelligence services, and I think it's something we in the committee are going to have to discuss seriously and we're going to have to have a really straightforward discussion with the White House.
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Mike Rogers
Representative (R-Mich.), Chair, House Select Committee on Intelligence
CNNW 08/03/2014
Rogers: I think it was wrong. Somebody needs to be held accountable. Crowley: Who is somebody? Should Brennan go? Rogers: We're going through the review. Somebody made a decision to do it but remember these weren't Senate computers. These were CIA computers at the CIA, so I think you have to take that into consideration when you're walking through. Crowley: We're kind of dancing on the head of a pin. Rogers: Well, no, in the sense it's a bit complicated but the story when briefed by the IG, it makes you stop and pause and say somebody needs to be held accountable, this is very serious but I don't think this is some conspiracy notion that they wanted to spy on either of our committees. That would of course be intolerable, I think it would be a crime. This somebody overstepped their bounds by trying to figure out what the coding was on who had access to CIA computers and CIA spaces, that's a little bit different than spying on congress, in my mind. still serious breach. it is a very serious breach of trust,
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Mike Rogers
Representative (R-Mich.), Chair, House Select Committee on Intelligence
CNNW 08/03/2014
Rogers: But I don't think this should be taken and extrapolated that every CIA officer out there is operating under this culture of lawlessness. As a matter of fact I argue they go the extra mile. they are absolutely concerned about making sure they follow the law especially when they're operating overseas and trying to do some really difficult work to keep America safe. Crowley: In the end, though, they're responsible for the actions of their employees. Rogers: Right.
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Mike Rogers
Representative (R-Mich.), Chair, House Select Committee on Intelligence
CNNW 08/03/2014
Crowley: think that in some ways, as you've heard, there have been democrats and republicans calling for the resignation of john Brennan at the CIA. Rogers: right. Crowley: Fairly or not, he's at the top, and the question here is, does the -- there's the NSA and all the things that it's been accused of doing, and sort of overstepping its bounds into the privacy of Americans. Now we have the CIA, and that they overstep their bounds, looking at the very committee that's supposed to be watching over the CIA and it gives you this impression that after 9/11 we just went way too far and that we have given up too much in exchange for the safety.
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Mike Rogers
Representative (R-Mich.), Chair, House Select Committee on Intelligence
CNNW 08/03/2014
Rogers: And that's why it's so important that the narrative be right, and it be based on the same set of facts. If we can all agree on the same set of facts we'll have an honest dialogue about what the intelligence community should look like and what should they be doing on behalf of the United States. I think that it's tougher in the court of public opinion when the narrative is not based on data points. So if I listen to this debate without hearing the IG report, which I did this week, it sounds like they hacked into the Senate computers at the Senate offices, shocking. But that's not what happened, and so it happened at the CIA with CIA computers, and what happened was, there was a difference in the setting that allowed them to get certain information. The way they did it was, is, again, needs to be held accountable. However, the narrative is different.
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Saxby Chambliss
U.S. Senator R-Georgia, Vice-Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
KYW 08/03/2014
Chambliss: They went to the department of justice and said OK, what can we do? What legally can we do? They were given legal opinions as to what they could do and in their opinion they didn’t violate that. There will be some allegations of going above and beyond. O’Donnell: But your minority report, you say will show evidence where some of these enhance interrogation techniques or torture, did yield useful intelligence? Chambliss: Absolutely. And the term torture is being used by the critics of the program. I think that term is going to be disputed – both by the O’Donnell: Is water boarding torture? Chambliss: Water boarding is one of the specific issues that was investigated by the department of justice from the standpoint of does it comply with the Geneva convention and they made a determination that it is authorized, that it is not torture.
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