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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

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.
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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.
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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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James Risen
NYT National Security Journalist
KYW 10/12/2014
Stahl: General Hayden makes the argument that you didn't have the expertise or the knowledge to know the whole picture and to understand the whole picture. And I guess implicit in that argument is, "who... who the hell are you?" Risen: ( laughs ) yeah. Stahl: I’m serious. "who elected you? yeah. Risen: The whole global war on terror has been classified. If we today had only had information that was officially authorized from the U.S. government, we would know virtually nothing about the war on terror.
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James Risen
NYT National Security Journalist
KYW 10/12/2014
Risen: We weren't revealing to anybody the fact that the United States listened to terrorist phone calls. Everybody knew that. The terrorists have known that forever. What we were revealing was that the U.S. government was violating its own laws. Stahl: Did you think that the whole program... did you think it was useless? Risen: No, I didn't think it was useless. I thought that if we are going to fight a global war on terror, we should follow the rule of law in the United States. Stahl: Risen remains at "The New York Times," still covering national security and he's written a new book. he could be called to testify about his confidential sources as early as January.
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Amy Goodman
Host and Executive Producer for Democracy Now
LINKTV 01/06/2015
Goodman: New York Times investigative reporter James Risen has appeared in court and refused to answer questions about his alleged source. The hearing in Virginia took place ahead of the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of giving Risen classified information, which revealed a botched CIA plot to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. Risen has waged a seven-year legal battle against the Obama administration's attempts to subpoena him and force him to reveal his source. It's unclear if Risen will be forced to testify at Sterling's trial. Risen's hearing comes as the administration has backed off on a threat to subpoena another journalist, "60 minutes producer" Richard Bonin, at a trial over bombings by al-Qaeda. "The New York Times" reports the U.S. attorney in Manhattan Preet Bharara, has withdrawn his recommendation to subpoena Bonin over his interactions with al-Qaeda's press office (during a bid to interview Osama bin Laden) in 1998.
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