He made no reference to the more recent disclosures from the Snowden Documents involving the fact that the NSA is bulk copying upwards of two hundred million, I repeat, two hundred million text messages worldwide.
R.K.: That's daily, right?
T.D.: There ain't no meta-data in a text message. That's pure content.
R.K.: So your overall response to Obama's statement today is?
T.D.: Well I thought I captured it, my first blush reaction to all of this.
R.K.: I am looking for something shorter.
T.D.: Okay, first your listening audience needs to understand, he has been kicking and screaming, digging in his heels, he never wanted to give this speech. He has only given this speech because of Snowden. There's no other reason.
And he's having to reluctantly acknowledge that there has been significant pressure put on him by those outside the intelligence establishment about the dangers of this type of activity and remember he is not going to talk about any of the other activities that he himself clearly knows about and either has continued authorizing or has given authorization to, that has yet to be disclosed and those are the activities they're not going to talk about. That includes content collection.
They have others, he has other authorities by the way that have not been revealed either including a number of the NSL, the National Security Letters are actually the mechanism by which they can use the FBI, the FBI's instrument to access bulk copy information on a pretty significant scale. I call it a back-door, it's an end-run. An NSL by definition is a writ of assistance.
It's a warrant-less mechanism that gives them, it's an administrative subpoena that gives the government, the executive branch extraordinary powers without having to establish any kind of suspicion let alone probable cause. We just want it, we're going to get it. If I issue it to you you're compelled to turn it over under penalty but you can't talk about it, you're gagged.
R.K.: Wow. The level of power he has is amazing. So you said that there are bulk surveillance programs that have yet to be discussed. How do you know about them?
T.D.: Well I knew about them when I was at NSA. This is, remember I have waited twelve plus years to testify in front of any committee. I am still waiting for the phone call and although I know that many people, many congressmen and senators in the past twelve years had it brought to their attention, and even in more recent months -
R.K.: Well wait have you ever spoken to a congressman or a senator?
T.D.: Off the record, to one.
R.K.: Can you say who?
T.D.: Senator Wyden.
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