two years ago edward snowden, a former u.s. national security agency contractor made headlines in a bit of history when he revealed intelligence agencies tracked americans phone calls, emails and metadata through a series of surveillance tools. mainstream news coverage painted edward snowden as a hero or pariah. president obama said he welcomed the debate pitting national security gapes the right to privacy. secretary of state john kerry still calls edward snowden a traitor and a coward. this week congress may hand edward snowden his biggest victory. june 1st a controversial section of patriot act, exposed by edward snowden, the part that gives the n.s.a. some powers expires. congress is torn over renewing the law. if it doesn't there's a piece of legation lying in wait, the u.s.a. freedom account, ending aspects of the surveillance programme as we know it. is it congress's digsecision to make. there was a meeting in the british countryside involving tech giants and former intelligence chiefs a band of big brothers discussing b

[applause] prime minister abe: too general snowden, -- to general snowden i pay tributes to your efforts. thank you so very much. [applause] prime minister abe: post-war, we started off on our path, bearing in mind feelings of deep remorse over the war. our actions brought suffering to the peoples in asian countries. we must not avert our eyes from that. i will oppose the views expressed by the previous prime minister in this regard. [applause] prime minister abe: we must all the more contribute with every respect to the movement of asia. we must spare no effort in working for the peace and prosperity of the region. reminding ourselves of all of that, we have come all this way. i am proud of this path we have taken. 70 years ago japan had been reduced to ashes. then came each and every month visits from the united states to japan. like milk for a children, and warm sweaters and even goats. yes, from america. 2036 goats came to japan. [laughter] prime minister abe: and it was japan that received the biggest benefit from the very beginning. the u.s. has fostered and opened up its own marke

ladies and gentlemen in the gallery today is lieutenant general law ens snowden -- lawrence snowden. 70 years ago in february he landed on the island of iwo jima. as a captain in command of a company. general snowden has often participated in the memory of friends. he has said, and i quote, we didn't and don't go to iwo jima to deliver victory, but with the promise to pay tribute to and honor those who lost their lives on both sides. next year, general snowden sits next to a former member of my cabinet. his grandfather, whose valor we remember even today, as the commander of the japanese garrison during the battle of iwo jima. what should we call this if not history enemies that has fought each other so fiercely have become friends. bonded in spirit. to general snowden i pay tribute to your effort for -- thank you so very much. post war we started out on our path bearing in mind feelings of deep remorse over the war. our actions brought suffering to the peoples in asian countries. we must not avert our eyes from that. i will uphold the views expressed by the previous prime ministers

edward snowden. my brother and the dancing raisins but next we debate the reason between healthy disobedience and rioting [baseball crowd noise] ♪ ♪ [x1 chime] ♪ ♪ [crowd cheers] oh! i can't believe it! [cheering] hi, grandma! ♪ >> get back. john: part of the rioting in baltimore. our next guest calls it civil disobedience. kevin powell is an author and activist labeling the baltimore situation because it is it racist to use the word riot. >> i said using that term to describe people in urban areas when they a prize or rebel. john: that looks like a riot then for about university of kentucky or any college program when they lose the championship came they don't call them thugs or gangsters or riot. john: you are right we did see vandals but after the stanley cup riot when vancouver lost the police chief called them criminals and thugs. said nato summit protest the eggs and wisconsin's state protests union thugs it isn't just black. >> i agree but when you talk about urban areas we are stere

snowden and he evaded your question completely. it is true that senator wyden has gone around for years trying to start a debate but didn't tell the american people about what the government was doing. so we couldn't debate it. it took edward snowden to come forward and came forward in large part because he heard director clapper, the senior u.s. national security official tell the senate and the american people falsely that the government was not doing exactly the program that the court today said was illegal. so to have an appellate court, the first time an apel late court looked at the legality of the program, come out and

edward snowden. my brother and the dancing raisins but next we debate the reason between healthy disobedience and rioting the real question that needs to be asked is "what is it that we can do that is impactful?" what the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. it used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, that's what i'd like to do. >> get back. john: part of the rioting in baltimore. our next guest calls it civil disobedience. kevin powell is an author and activist labeling the baltimore situation because it is it racist to use the word riot. >> i said using that term to describe people in urban areas when they a prize or rebel. john: that looks like a riot then for about university of kentucky or any college program when they lose the championship came they don't call them thugs or gangsters or riot. john: you are right we did see vandals but after the stanley c

amy: that is edward snowden. judge gerard e. lynch wrote that the sheer volume of information sought is staggering, while search warrants and subpoenas for business records may encompass large volumes of paper documents or electronic data the most expansive evidentiary or he demands are dwarfed by the volume of records obtained pursuant to the orders in question here. jameel jaffer, can you comment on this. section 215. does that include section 215a? jameel: it is the same thing. amy: what does this mean? as early as yesterday morning, the senate majority leader was talking about how they were not going to change this. jameel: i think he is still talking about that. we get this decision in the middle of this congressional debate. the reason we are having the debate is that three provisions of the patriot act, they will go away unless congress does something. we think they should go away and that the provisions should never have been enacted in the first place. at the very least, congress should make strong reforms to prevent th

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edward snowden was still in the airport. so we thought, well, this is an opportunity, actually, to send edward snowden to latin america on one of these jets. now i thought and was advised -- advised edward snowden he would be safest in russia. that the ability to protect the borders of russia significantly stronger than venezuela possibilities, for example, to protect its borders were ecuador's to protect its borders. but he was very worried about the optics. he did not want to be accused of being some kind of russian spy, so he really did not want to be in russia because he did not want that kind of propaganda attack to distract from the revelations. even though it would place him at risk. so it was the week of the oil conference in a number of presidential jets were flying back. we were considering one of these. so we then -- our code language that we used to overtly swapped presidential jet we were considering for the bolivian jet. so spoke about bolivia in order to distract from the actual candidate jet. some of our comm

snowden, along comes mr. greenwald and a couple of others and lay out for us exactly what has been going on without the upset of the people. and i thought, thank god, thank god. >> glenn greenwald, i've been watching this fairley carefully and i don't have a big stack of public apologies. do you? or to edward snowden here. is this the only one? is this the first one? have i missed a few? >> no. i think it's hard not just in politics, but as a human being to do what mr. carter did, to first re-evaluate and publicly admit that your original opinions weren't accurate. i think that's hard for all of us to do. there have been some people who have done it. there was a vicious post about snowden early on and said later on, i've thought about it and everything i said was wrong. he wasn't in it for fame or money, he was in it because he believed the public had a right to know. juan williams just wrote a column in "the hill" that said he was wrong, in light of the court says that he was this program was illegal, in lig

>> we argued a case just before the snowden disclosures in the supreme court challenging a different surveillance program and the supreme court held 5-4 that we didn't have standing, we didn't have the right to be there because we couldn't prove that our communications had been monitored. and, you know, that was a very demoralizing decision. then months after, just weeks after, in fact, that decision, the snowden disclosures came and gave us among other things standing to challenge this program. >> because just on its face, everyone -- >> everybody is subject to the program. we happen to be, the aclu happens to be a customer of verizon business networks which

emily: tell me about your relationship with edward snowden? kim: he will be remembered in history as one of the great people of our time. i think he is a hero and i admire him for his courage. emily what about julian assange? what is your relationship with him yet ofhim? kim: what julian assange is doing is putting a spotlight on the secrets. emily: you tweeted you were going to be hillary's worst nightmare. how so? >> it is probably more julian. i am aware of some of the things that are going to be roadblocks for her.

in terms of snowden, still overseas, do you think this brings him back home? >> it should. i mean, if you think about what a whistle blower is a whistle blower is somebody who shines a light and discloses to the public something that the government is hiding and shouldn't be hiding that at least there's a good argument to make an example of wrongdoing. and now you have not just a federal judge who last year already said the program was unconstitutional likely but a federal appeals court saying it's illegal, how can anybody say that we would be better off if edward snowden had kept quiet and let us remain ignorant of the spying program that the federal court now said is illegal, it's classic whistle blowing.

spying and the patriot act, sparked by the disclosures of edward snowden. julian: how can you debate them? they're secret. similarly, what are the actual actions that are occurring not just in policy but what is actually happening. what are they actually doing? if you don't know, how can you possibly have a debate? amy: today wikileaks founder julian assange for the hour, all that and more coming up. amy: welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report, i'm amy goodman. a suicide attack by the self-proclaimed is tam i can state has reportedly killed dozens near the iraqi city of fallujah. the bombing hit an iraqi army convoy involved in the ongoing offensive to retake the capital of an barprove isil. at the white house, the brett secretary stood by comments from defense secretary ash carter that israeli forces will lack the will to fight. >> that certainly has been a problem that we've seen in the past. that's what allowed isil to make such significant gains last summer, and so what the united states and our coalition has been focused

did we have any cases that were brought by these programs that edward snowden exposed? and the conversation now is why are we spending all of this money on these programs. >> reporter: he is encouraged by efforts in the u.s. house to curb phone data collection. he hopes it's part of a national conversation about civil rights and national security. libby casey, al jazeera, washington. >>> the senate has a couple of options today. renew it as it extend it or consider the usa freedom act. it curtails the nsa's mass collection of phone data. >> i don't think the privacy community would say it's entirely satisfied with that. but we're talking about one provision, section 215, which is the provision that was used to gather every american's telephone records over a period of seven years with no evidence that it has been used to build any cases. so that's the main thing that people are arguing about today. but that's only a very small piece of the intelligence community's activities and a lot of people are concerned, including people like senator paul and widen, that actually u

does is right or wrong, does that make edward snowden the hero or the goat? >> i wrote this when edward snowden come out. i don't care whether he's a hero or a goat. i think it's a distraction. is the information he gave us accurate. >> if the answer is yes, the n.s.a. was doing things wrong. the debate whether edward snowden is a hero or villain, to me it doesn't matter. what matters is is it information what he provided us with the truth, it seems like it is. edward snowden, hero or goat, now that we are having this debate as to whether what the n.s.a. did is right or wrong. >> i don't care whether he's a hero or a goat. i think the important thing is what he put out there, was what the n.s.a. doing legal, was it in conformity with the public's expectation. these are important questions that president obama said, nears are questions that we need to get out in the pope, and need to have a serious debate about. is he vindicated with time. >> he regards the section 215 scenario as vindication. not only has he seen two review panels say it didn't provide useful

. >> the disclosures by edward snowden enabled a global controversy, a cultural conversation that remains ongoing in the face of a policy conversation that quite frankly has yet to even support. >> reporter: this supporter agrees on one thing that snowden was a game changer. >> you know, edward snowden, bless his little heart, did a big favor for our enemies by portraying our collection programs as much more sinister than they are. >> reporter: he maintains the act has made the country safer. >> it is certainly dangerous to roll back the government's abilities to conduct this type of surveillance far too restrictively. if we don't do these things we will suffer attacks. >> reporter: the civil rightest attorney says the government has a hard time proving its surveillance attacks have actually stopped attacks. >> do we have any cases that were brought by these programs that edward snowden exposed? and the conversation now is why are we spending all of this money on these programs. >> reporter: he is encouraged by efforts to curb phone data collection and have a public advocate in the foreig

the debate whether edward snowden is a hero or villain, to me it doesn't matter. what matters is is it information what he provided us with the truth, it seems like it is. edward snowden, hero or goat now that we are having this debate. whether what the n.s.a. did is right or wrong. >> i don't care whether he's a hero or a goat. important thing is what he put out there, was what the n.s.a. doing legal, was it in conformity with the government. these are important questions that president obama said nears are questions that we need to get out in the pope and need to have a serious debate about. is he vindicated with time. >> he regards the section 215 scenario as vindication. they came out and said this didn't provide useful counterterrorism. the d o.j. says the same thing. the court of appeal found the programme to be illegal, and it's about to expire or else be radically reformed. with respect to this programme, which is one very small part of the n.s.a.'s authorities and provisions, he seems to do well. >> faisal patel, the co-director. liberty and national secu

it's a case that we filed right after the first snowden disclosures. this was the first program that was disclosed. >> this was the big bombshell one that said, hey, by way, they keep going to your cell phone providers and saying give us everyone's call records. >> every day, every day they got from all the major telecommunications providers a list of, you know, essentially this log of who you called and when you called them, how long you spoke to them for and they have that for everybody, not just suspected terrorists or suspected criminals, everybody. and we challenged the lawfulness of that program. both on statutory grounds and on constitutional grounds. and the ruling today is a ruling that the program violates the statute. in other words, the law doesn't authorize the government to collect information on this scale. so it's, you know, a big deal. >> so just to be clear here, right, there's the patriot act, the statute, there's the u.s. constitution. constitutional grounds. this ruling doesn't touch the constitutional question, right? >> that's ri

well, yesterday those brooklyn guys got their giant edward snowden head back. they got ticketed officially yesterday for what they did. their tickets were actually for being in the park when it was closed, which is illegal. but the bigger issue was their confiscated statue. the city had had their statue. yesterday finally a month after they put it up in ft. greene park, new york city gave them back their giant four-foot-tall bespectacled 100-pound metal edward snowden head. that's what happened yesterday. today edward snowden got something else from new york city. he got vindication of a kind. a federal appeals court that sits in new york, an appeals court, one level below the supreme court, second circuit court of appeals today ruled the nsa program that edward snowden leaked to the public because he thought it was illegal and people should, therefore, know about it, a federal appeals court ruled today that that program is in fact illegal. constitutionally they say that program cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it. so does this mean th

some people think snowden's a traitor. but this is a case of journalist shining a light in the darkness and affecting the public debate. now, one of those journalists, glenn greenwald-s joining me now from rio. he was one of snowden's original contacts and now a journalist for the intercept. glenn, thanks for being here. >> good to be with you. >> i just wanted to highlight this idea that without snowden we wouldn't see rand paul necessarily on the floor of the senate this afternoon trying to stop this bill. remind us where the debate was and where it was after snowden. >> well remember that when the patriot act was enacted even in the weeks after 9/11 when the country was pretty much willing to do anything the government wanted it was recognized it was an incredibly radical and extremist piece of legislation, and the idea was these powers we're giving the government should be temporary, not permanent, and so they're going to sunset every five years unless congress renews them. and yet in 2005 the bush administration deman

snowden and he evaded your question completely. it is true that senator wyden has gone around for years trying to start a debate but didn't tell the american people about what the government was doing. so we couldn't debate it. it took edward snowden to come forward and came forward in large part because he heard director clapper, the senior u.s. national security official tell the senate and the american people falsely that the government was not doing exactly the program that the court today said was illegal. so to have an appellate court, the first time an apel late court looked at the legality of the program, come out and decisively say it's legal is very gratifying. >> how comfortable are you the executive branch or the legislative branch are going to act on this? >> well in some sense, they need to act on it now because there's a court ruling that essentially said the program is illegal. and that although they're not stopping the program, they're giving congress an opportunity to stop it on their own. if they don't stop it th

even snowden was not even known on the inside that they were being hacked. this is a great span that we do not know anything about. they know all the information about the -- about us, and we know nothing about them. we cannot audit the fbi or see it -- nsa. even the boston bomber was found by an upstairs person, looking down at the boat. it was not the cia or anybody else. it was the american people. guest: a lot of times with these e attacks, in retrospect, you can see intelligence misses. they should have found someone been listening on a phone call arrested someone -- the leader of the islamic state was held in a prison in iraq about 10 years ago. in retrospect, it is easy to say that there have been mistakes. what this caller may be overlooking is that it is really hard what these intelligence agencies have to do. they have to sort through all the chatter all the threats both domestic and foreign, to find potential threats. the boston bombing, in bridges by, you can see the radicalization of the older brother. that's a thing, we see a lot of people at s

emily: ball collection was exposed by edward snowden. i recently interviewed cam.com, a man who was concerned himself with these programs. he's the founder of megaupload and the target of the biggest copyright case in history. i asked him what his message for president obama is. take a listen. kim.com: what is my message? it would be nice if he delivered the change, if he didn't spy on the world population. emily: tell me about your relationship with edward snowden? kim: he will be remembered in history as one of the great people of our time. >> what about julian assange? kim: what julian assange is doing is putting a spotlight on the secrets. emily: you tweeted you were going to be hillary's worst nightmare. how so russian mark >> it is probably more julian. i am aware of some of the things that are going to be roadblocks for her. if i can provide transparency with these people and make them part of what the internet party stands for, i will be happy to do that. emily: julian assange is going to be her worst nightmare? how so? kim: he h

event you had a contractor who employed snowden, and snowden used his access to steal a lot of information. emily: the information stolen from the irs website, can this company help, or private tech firms? secretary chertoff: the irs has a deeper problem. it was the harvesting of data that was collected over a period of time. what i understand is that they mailed in refund requests or sent in refund requests, using data they had received from a variety of sources, including social media, meaning people put it on themselves, not realizing they were getting criminals some of the keys to getting at their identities, so i think it is more than just a single contractor or single program. you have to build an ecosystem of security start to finish. emily: a ceo recently said he thinks we're going to see google, ibm, big companies like hp buying these companies. who are the targets? secretary chertoff: it is a hot area. you may have big enterprise and smaller companies because they want to round off their offering. and this is an area, if i can use a clichÉ, there is a lot of disruption, and some

did we have any cases that actually were brought by seized programs that edward snowden exposed? the conversation now is why are we spending all this money on these programs. >> we'll he is no fan of the patriot act he has a public advocate in the surveillance court. he hopes it's part of the national conversation about civil rights and national security. libby casey, al jazeera washington. >> the f.b.i. has dramatically increased its use of the patriot act to collect information. an internal review by the department of justice says the agency has been using its authority to sweep up data on people who are not part of any active investigation. the expansion is due in part to more electronic information being available. the report also faults the f.b.i. for taking seven years to create privacy protections. we are learning more about emails sent from a personal account by former secretary of state hillary clinton. >> "the new york times" obtained hundreds of pages related to the 2012 benghazi attack and situation in libya. they include a warning from christopher stevens the u.s. am

what is the deal with snowden? >> i'm not sure i have an answer on that but i would as president immediately stop the bulk collection of records. i think it's unconstitutional. the court now says it's illegal. so i would not collect phone records without a warrant with someone's name on it with the i'ds we were looking for and with probable cause. so i would end the program that we have of bulk collection immediately. >> i should add that a review panel concluded that the program had not been critical to disrupting any terrorist plots in the u.s.. do you know of any success with this program? did it do anything for protect us that you know specifically? >> i know of no one that was ever caught or stoppedprotect us that you know specifically? >> i know of no one that was ever caught or stopped from this program. they say it was used in conjunction with other information, but typically we have information of an individual like the guy that did the shooting from phoenix, we knew his name. i'm all for look at his infor

emily: tell me about your relationship with edward snowden? kim: he will be remembered in history as one of the great people of our time. i think he is a hero and i admire him for his courage. emily what about julian assange? what is your relationship with him yet ofhim? kim: what julian assange is doing is putting a spotlight on the secrets. emily: you tweeted you were going to be hillary's worst nightmare. how so? >> it is probably more julian. i am aware of some of the things that are going to be roadblocks for her. if i can provide transparency with these people and make them part of what the internet party stands for, i will be happy to do that. emily: julian assange is going to be her worst nightmare? how so? kim: he has access to information. emily: what information? kim: i don't know the specifics. emily: why hillary? kim: she is an adversary to internet freedom. and she sent your -- emily: he signed your extradition request. and you have a bone to pick with her. kim: i like hillary. i like obama. it is crazy all of this happened. emil

today for the first time, a high level federal court ruled that one of the programs disclosed by edward snowden in 2013 is illegal. the opinion for the unanimous three-judge panel, second circuit u.s. court of appeals, reads as a harsh criticism of the government's argument that a massive nsa program to collect in bulk the domestic phone records of millions of americans is lawful under section 215 of the patriot act. the judge wrote "we hold the text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, it does not authorize the telephone meta data program." section 215 is set to expire next month unless a bill is passed to reauthorize it. patrick leahy of vermont and mike lee of utah released a bipartisan statement that reads in part, "congress should not reauthorize bulk collection program that the court has found

this the clearest -- the clearest case of all that we've learned about these programs throughout the snowden docs and through other reporting? >> you mean, is it the worst surveillance program, is that what you mean? >> yes. the clearest -- the sort of clearest violation of its own authority. >> right. >> or the clearest constitutional problem. >> well, it may be that this is the clearest violation of a statute, of a federal statute. although there are other provisions -- other surveillance programs that are based on the same problematic legal theory that the government was advancing here. but there are other programs that in some ways are even worse, but they don't rely -- >> it's striking to consider this was happening in secret and there's no way to challenge it until you knew about it.

. >> senator, edward snowden is in large part the reason this case was brought to court. should this exonerate him at least in name? >> my view is that having a public debate on this has been long overdue and that's what i tried to start with my talk on the floor of the united states senate. i do think it would have been a lot better if that debate had been started by the intelligence leadership. in fact, the intelligence leadership didn't do it and when i asked them at a public hearing, the director, i said does the government collect any type of data at all on millions of americans? the director of national intelligence said no and that was false. >> do you think that james claper should step down?

the bulk collection of telephone met data first disclosed by former nsa contractor edward snowden. today's ruling which was unanimous, comes as congress debates to end, replace, or perhaps extend the meta data

>> rep t s of the edward snowden spying allegations hestates as well with rand paul united states senator doing sort of a mini filibuster on the senate floor against the patriot act. now there's some real question about whether the provisions of the patriot act that apply to spying on meta data for telephone records for american citizens whether those provisions will be reauthorized by the june 1st deadline or not. there's some question about whether or not there a votes in the senate to do that. the house has passed its version, not clear at this point what's going to happen here. >> we also heard from fbi director who expressed concerns over tech companies and their encryption. >> yeah broad number of companies wrote a letter to president obama thi week saying they don't want any limits placed in u.s. law on their ability to sell encryption. law enforcement, including fbi director comey said they want encry so they can get into the iphones and devices of criminals they are targeting with a warrant, but the companies would like to sell encryption to their companies uninhibited by the u.s

snowden was a game changer. edward snowden bless his little heart, did a fave for our enemies by pore delaying our collection programs as more sinister than they are. >> the patriot act made the county fair. >> it's dangerous to roll back the governments abilities to roll back restrictively. the civil rights attorney says the government has a hard time proving that the surveillance techniques stop attacks. >> did we catch - did we have cases that actually were brought by these programs that edward snowden exposed, and the conversation now is why are we spending money on the programs. >> while he has no fan of the patriot act. there are efforts to curb phone data collections, he hopes that it's part of a national conversation about civil rights and national security >>> the senate moved forward with a bill that gives president obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals. in a defeat for democratic leaders, the senate agreed to move the legislation to debate. senators will consider amendments and a final v

in 2013, the extent of the surveillance was revealed when edward snowden leaked n.s.a. documents indicating the government was sweeping up records of nearly every phone call made in the u.s. the aslu sued claiming this violated americans right to privacy. the court did not rule on that constitutional issue, but said the programme is illegal because it goes beyond what congress intended. >> this is it pretty enormous ruling for the court to hold that a programme that the u.s. government was implementing for over a decade was unlawful, passed. >> under the surveillance program, the government collected the time, date and length of phone calls, but not the content. the government argued it could be relevant to future terrorism investigations. the court rejected that saying: . >> the ruling could have a broader impact. >> do you think there are other programs that the government may have to halt? do we know? >> we don't know for sure. it's been pretty strongly indicated by senator widen and others that the phone records welcome was not the only bulk collection programs. >>