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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

Alex Abdo
American Civil Liberties Union, Staff Attorney-Speech, Privacy & Technology Project
CSPAN 09/02/2014
Lynch: Even if Congress authorized the program explicitly, it is still unconstitutional; I realize that’s your position. Abdo: That’s right. But I see your suggestion. I think that could be an element of the reasonableness of the expectation of privacy. The fact that the executive intrusion has not been authorized by Congress, has not been one deliberated over by democracy. Lynch: As opposed to what might happen if there was a real debate in the democratic branches of government that led to a decision to re-up this program. Abdo: That’s right. But I think if anything, the current debate that’s ongoing suggests the opposite. It suggests that Congress is not comfortable, and the country is not comfortable with bulk collection. And indeed the President himself has recognized that bulk collection creates an intolerable abuse and should be ended.
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Alex Abdo
American Civil Liberties Union, Staff Attorney-Speech, Privacy & Technology Project
CSPAN 09/02/2014
Broderick: but with regard to what is actually being captured, which is the number assigned, are you saying that, because the government is collecting that in bulk, in other words, for 7 years, whatever, of your client, that that is unconstitutional? Abdo: That’s right. I think that if in 1979 the state of Maryland had investigated Michael lee Smith, not through the targeted use of a Pen Register, but because it had from the moment of his birth created a data base that every phone call he ever made or received. And kept that data base in the government coffer, I think the Supreme Court would have understood that case to stand for a very proposition. And I wager they would have found that collection unconstitutional.
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Alex Abdo
American Civil Liberties Union, Staff Attorney-Speech, Privacy & Technology Project
CSPAN 09/02/2014
Abdo: in an individualized fashion we would still think the program is unreasonable for the very simple reason that it is the most intrusive means that the government could use to accomplish it’s very narrow interests. That sort of program has always held to be unreasonable. And it’s in part, and I think this is a critical point, I’ll emphasize it again, it’s because even the President has conceded that the government’s interest can be accomplished in narrow means. And it’s not just the President, it’s the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that wrote a very lengthy report concluding that bulk collection is unnecessary. It’s a hand selected review group, a group hand selected by the President, himself that came to the same conclusion. And there’s record evidence in this case from Professor Felton, who’s a professor of computer science at Princeton explaining very simply how the government could recreate this program in a targeted way that would not require bulk collection. I think that showing goes to both the question of practicality and reasonableness.
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