The Guardian newspaper has revealed the National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases to search for email and phone calls of U.S. citizens without a warrant. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, NSA operatives can hunt for individual Americans’ communications using their name or other identifying information. The Guardian published the article on Friday just hours before President Obama held a news conference about the NSA. While Obama repeatedly defended the NSA’s surveillance operations, he outlined four proposals for reforming the programs.
Jennifer Hoelzer talking:
It’s very hard to hear that, to be honest. To know a little bit about me, I worked for Senator Ron Wyden for six years. And Senator Wyden, his conscience did move him to try to speak up about these things and try to draw attention and try to start a debate, and, quite frankly, there were no other avenues to bring this information to light. When the president tries to make it sound like, you know, he was already moving us in this direction, he had five years to do that. And I—you know, we—you could see on Senator Wyden’s website—I think we put up a timeline, you know, because our frustration of how many times we asked the administration to declassify information so that we could have a public debate on these issues, where we asked him to slow down because Congress didn’t know what it was voting on and didn’t know what the authorities the administration was claiming to have. And, you know, I think, as somebody who I’m fairly confident, you know, having worked for him—and keep in mind, I was his deputy chief of staff, and he couldn’t even tell me, you know, what programs he was attempting to conduct oversight over—that there was no way. I think we left no stone unturned to try to bring these issues to light.
Obviously, I’m concerned, you know, as is the president, the only way we seem to be able to have this debate was through an unauthorized disclosure. Our national security policy should be such that there is a respect for classification procedures and that, you know, whistleblowers don’t feel a need to come forward with this information. I share his concern. It would have been much, much better had we been able to have this debate and under more rational circumstances, with facts coming out on both sides. But the fact of the matter is, the president of the United States had five years to make that happen, and he didn’t. And I find that concerning. And I’m glad he’s coming to the table now, and I think—hope he’s sincere, and I hope he puts the muscle behind this that he claims to be doing. But I think his track record thus far does not show a personal commitment from him or many members of his administration to make that happen.
all happening because of Edward Snowden now. I think it is happening because this information was brought to light. And, you know, it’s—I was talking to a former colleague last night about this, that for many years, you know, we tried to have a debate on these issues. And there’s a very different—when the public does not know what’s happening, when the public gets all theoretical arguments, one, you know, reporters don’t cover theoretical arguments. I mean, there’s a lot of theories. They cover facts. And the American people grapple on the facts, and that’s when they start calling their members of Congress, and that’s when we have a debate. And no facts were being brought to light. And we, working for Senator Wyden, did everything to try to encourage the administration to bring these facts to light. You know, we’re not talking about sources and methods. We’re not talking about, you know, sensitive materials. We’re talking about what they believed the law allows them to do. And that’s up to the American people to have an ability to, you know approve, say yes or no, this is what we want the government to be doing. And they didn’t give them that chance. And, unfortunately, Edward Snowden, you know, was the only means by which we’ve been able to have that chance and this debate.
President Obama saying, “What makes us different from other countries is not simply our ability to secure our nation. It’s the way we do it, with open debate and democratic process.”
I was quite angry when I read that remark, because, again, I spent close to a thousand hours of my life trying to draw attention and trying to push for exactly that, a public debate on these issues, on what the administration believes a unclassified law, that you or I or anyone else can read, says and allows them to do. You know, Congress writes these laws, and then Congress needs to know how these laws are being interpreted. Are they being interpreted the way Congress intended to be interpreted?
everything else has come to light, and that’s the one thing that hasn’t, although I believe the president has committed to, you know, unclassifying that. But, you know, it’s—it’s, I believe, a misuse of the classification systems to classify things that could be embarrassing or politically embarrassing or inconvenient, or, you know, just a legal interpretation that, yes, it’s—and I think that’s where we need actual classification reform, so that we are classifying national secrets, not information that might be embarrassing or might lead to a debate that could take away authorities that they think they should have.
these laws, the PATRIOT Act and then the FISA Amendments Act, they were both passed with sunset provisions. And the idea of that is that these are controversial provisions that are going into new areas of law and that Congress wants to revisit those laws, you know, a few years later to see how they’re working, to make sure—do we need to fine-tune it? Do we need to take powers away, add powers? I mean, it’s supposed to be a review process. And in each of these cases, when the PATRIOT Act did come up for reauthorization, first in 2009 and then again in 2011, there was no ability to have that debate.
Senator Wyden did—right when President Obama became into office, I think they—and I don’t know the full extent of my boss’s work on this, because, again, he did it in a classified setting, but there was a number of letters, there was a number of conversations, trying to—you know, assuming that the president, who—let’s not forget, he came into office promising a new era of transparency, that he, as a senator, was opposed to many of these programs in theory and in practice. And so, I think they assumed that he would be moving in a different direction. And when he didn’t do that—I believe it was November of 2009—both the senator and his Intelligence Committee staffer, you know, came to me, and I sat down, and said, “We need to start drawing attention to these issues.” And it was a very difficult conversation, as it was for the following four years, in which, you know, they’re trying to tell me that we need to draw attention to things that they couldn’t, you know, give me details or even tell me what they were trying to get me to draw attention to.
But at that point, you know, right before they were about to vote, they stressed that members of Congress were going to vote on something that they didn’t know the full extent of. And so, that’s when we, you know, in an unclassified way, started coming forward and saying—you know, trying to put public pressure on the administration to declassify this information. But they didn’t do it then. They didn’t do it in unclassified setting. They didn’t do it when it was brought to their attention in 2009, and they didn’t do it again in 2011. And they didn’t do it, you know, a few months ago, when Senator Wyden, in a hearing, actually asked the director of national intelligence a direct question: You know, was he collecting—was the National Security Agency collecting data on millions, if not hundreds of millions, of Americans? And, you know, he chose to lie in answer to that question. And the president didn’t, you know, speak up to correct him then so we could have a public debate with the facts that he believes are important. And it’s troubling, in my mind, that we tried everything we could, and there was no give on that side.
AMY GOODMAN: General Hayden’s characterizations about the people who are critical and want more information? You write about this in your piece.
JENNIFER HOELZER: Mm-hmm, yes. I think, you know, what I find most troubling—and it’s hard, because I know members of Congress aren’t in a position often to do what I’m doing right now, which is to say, you know, look, this—our national security policy, there’s something troubling here. I think, since September 11, there has been this push in this country that the debate around national security has been: Who can sound the toughest on national security policy? You know, the only way to be tough on national security policy is to demonstrate a willingness to go to extreme measures. Well, how often in life is the extreme, the most extreme approach, the smartest and the best way to handle any situation? I mean, oftentimes it creates more problems than it solves. But we have this political debate that it’s about who can sound more extreme, who can sound more tough. Well, I don’t want us to sound tough; I want us to be smart.
And I think that’s the problem, is when, you know, folks like General Hayden step in and you question them, they get offended, and they talk about their patriotism. They talk about national security and how they’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep this country safe. And I am, too. I just sometimes think that it’s important to step back and evaluate that. And that’s, honestly, you know, what oversight is about. It’s about taking a step back from some of these programs and asking ourselves, “Is this working as well as it should be? Is this the best approach to the situation? Are we making things worse?”
You know, I want to keep Americans safe, and I want to do it in the smartest and the best way possible. And I don’t think a lot of, you know, trumped-up machismo is the way to do it. And I think it does—it lends to a situation where folks like me and Senator Wyden and, you know, a lot of passionate people out there and in, you know, many of these communities who are expressing concerns, I think the response often is that they don’t care about national security. And it is. I have increasingly been troubled that, you know, the response that you get from some in those communities—and these are patriotic Americans who go to work every day to try to keep Americans safe—I don’t doubt that. But I’m troubled that the response to those who are expressing concerns is to treat them, in some sense, like they’re a threat equal to al-Qaeda.
– source democracynow.org
Jennifer Hoelzer, former deputy chief of staff for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).