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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

Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: Can anyone turn it on remotely if it's off? Can they turn on apps? Did anyone know or care that I Googled the final score of the Rangers/Canadiens game last night because I was traveling here? Snowden: I would say yes to all of those. They can absolutely turn them on with the power turned off the device. That's pretty scary. The thing about the Rangers game is also scary.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Snowden: They'd be able to tell something called your pattern of life. When are you doing these kind of activities? When do you wake up? When do you go to sleep? What other phones are around you when you wake up and go to sleep? Are you with someone who's not your wife? Are you doing something, are you someplace you shouldn't be according to government, which is arbitrary, you know? Are you engaged in any kind of activities that we disapprove of, even if they aren't technically illegal? And all of these things can raise your level of scrutiny. Even if it seems entirely innocent to you, even if you have nothing to hide, even if you're doing nothing wrong. These activities can be misconstrued, misinterpreted and used to harm you as an individual. Even without the government having any intent to do you wrong. The problem is that the capabilities, themselves, are unregulated, uncontrolled, and dangerous. Williams: All because I googled Rangers/Canadiens/final score.
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Brian Williams
Anchor and Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: Now about that last point there about the paper trail that Snowden says exists within the NDS. So far, NBC news learned from multiple sources that Snowden did indeed send at least one e-mail to the general counsel's office raising policy and legal questions. We have filed a request under the freedom of information act to look for any other records.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: What is the closest you've come to estimating the number of documents? Snowden: I will say the 1.7 million documents, figure that the intelligence community has been bandying about, the director of NSA himself Keith Alexander said just a week ago in the Australian Financial Times, or Australian Financial Review, I believe, that they have no idea what documents were taken at all. Their auditing was so poor, so negligent that any private contractor, not even an employee of the government could walk into the NSA building, take whatever they wanted, and walk out with it and they would never know. Now, I think that's a problem. And I think that's something that needs to be resolved. People need to be held to account for. Has it happened before? Could it happen again?
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: In his recently published book "No Place to Hide" Greenwald describes that moment he first met Snowden in Hong Kong. What did you make of him? Greenwald: The initial impression was one of extreme confusion. Because I was expecting to meet somebody in his 60s or 70s, someone very senior in the agency because I knew almost nothing about him prior to our arrival in Hong Kong. Snowden: It was a really intimidating moment. You know, it was the most real point of no return because the minute you start talking to a journalist as an intelligence officer, on camera, there's really no going back from that. That's where it all comes together.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: By handing over the documents to journalists, Snowden says he wanted to put some space between himself and what he himself stole from government computers. He wanted others to break the stories and do the reporting and check to see which stories might cause undue harm. Snowden: And that's the reason that the journalists have been required by their agreement with me as the source, although they could obviously break that or do whatever they want, but I demanded that they agree to consult with the government to make sure no individuals or specific harms could be caused by any of that reporting. Williams: That includes NBC News which has reported on its own batch of Snowden documents and has a reporting relationship with Glenn Greenwald Snowden: When it comes to specific stories about the specific collection programs, about specific targets, these aren't decided by me. These are decided by newspapers.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Snowden: There is nothing that would be published that would harm the public interest. These are programs that need to be understood, that need to be known, that require deep background and context for research. They are difficult to report. but they are of critical public importance. Williams: Just for clarification here note that Snowden didn't deny turning over military secrets. He asserted instead they wouldn't be published.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: The arc of your life is you went from signing up for the military of after 9/11, in effect saying you were willing to die for your country to then telling people you half expected to die via abduction or assassination after what you have done in this instance. That's a pretty dramatic arc since 2003, 2004. Snowden: I think that's actually a solid representation of the dramatic arcs that have happened within our government in the same period. Do you think our nation has changed since 9/11? Have the policies changed? Has the manner of our government changed? Has civil engagement with the government changed? Have our politics changed? Are things radically different in terms of partisanship? There have been radical changes within our government.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: Do you see yourself as a patriot? Snowden: I do. You know, I think patriot is a word that's thrown around so much that it can be devalued nowadays. But being a patriot doesn't mean prioritizing service to government above all else. Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries and those adversaries don't have to be foreign countries. They can be bad policies. They can be officials who, you know, need a little bit more accountability. They can be mistakes of government and simple overreach and things that should never have been tried or that went wrong.
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Edward Snowden
whistleblower
KNTV 05/28/2014
Williams: Did you say earlier you were still serving your government? Snowden: Yes. Williams: How so? Snowden: When you look at the actions that I‘ve taken, when you look at the carefulness of the programs that have been disclosed, when you look at the way this has been filtered through the most trusted journalistic institutions in America, When you look at the way the government has had a chance to chime in on this and to make their case, and when you look at the changes that it's resulted in
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