Senator Wyden Discusses Plans to Curb Massive Computer Surveillance System

HEADLINE: Interview With Ron Wyden on Senate Vote to Curb Pentagons Plans for Massive Computer Surveillance System

U.S. Senators want to put the brakes on big brother. The Senate voted yesterday to curb Pentagon plans for a massive computer surveillance system. The program, called Total Information Awareness, is supposed to protect us against terrorism. But lawmakers are worried about expanding the government's ability to snoop on ordinary Americans.

Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the amendment. So, Senator, tell me, how is this going to protect us?

SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Well what this does is it makes sure that we're not going to unleash a bunch of virtual bloodhounds to go sniffing into the medical and financial records of ordinary Americans. It sets out a very tough oversight regime and it makes sure that—that in order to go forward with something like this there have got to be some strong procedural protections so that the civil liberties of the American people are secure.

GIBSON: OK, but let's—let's put up your safeguards and John Poindexter's original plans against the template of Mohamed Atta—just to figure out if—if we would catch him, of if he would slip through. Mohamed Atta showed up at one of those urgent care places with a burn on his hands that some people think was a chemical or maybe had even been anthrax and that he might of take—been taking the medication to counteract anthrax.

Is—are the protections you are setting up going to prevent investigators from putting two and two together out of the billions of numbers out there and figure out who the next Mohamed Atta is?

WYDEN: I don't—I don't think that our effort is going to hurt the desire to get the Mohamed Atta's whatsoever. First of all in those kind of instances Mohamed Atta had a contact of ten or eleven agencies and people should have been aware very early on that this was somebody who represented a threat to our country. Let's remember this is somebody who went to a flight training school, I mean he tried to land a plane...

GIBSON: He did a lot of things—let me put it this way, Senator, just to reset the question. A smarter Mohamed Atta, that wasn't actually - - asking the INS for please send me my approval after I'm dead. You know, of course he should have been caught but the next generation might be a little more clever than that.

WYDEN: We have a wide berth to make sure that our—our government is going to be in a position when you're talking about foreign intelligence sources, when you're talking about the national security matters, that those inquiries can go forward.

What I'm concerned about is setting up a virtual centralized database that snoops into the lives of ordinary Americans. Right now, when you go to an ATM, your credit card files, these kinds of sources of information already there's a lot of surveillance. What this is going to do is take snooping to a whole new level. I'm concerned about law abiding Americans, I don't think it impedes the effort to track down terrorists one bit.

GIBSON: OK, but, what is it—first of all, I'm curious about the politics of this. On the Republican side or the conservative side, are there conservatives who are more interested in security and there are conservatives who are more afraid of Big Brother. How did the politics work out? Who's on your side here?

WYDEN: Well first of all, I don't think privacy is a partisan issue. I mean, we have people from the Eagle Forum, which is very conservative to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is certainly on the liberal side so privacy is not a partisan kind of question.

I think what you saw was a bipartisan group of senators saying we're going to strike a balance here. We're going to make sure that law enforcement does have—have the tools—that's why we set out several exceptions so that when national security is—is involved the investigations can go forward but we make sure that we're not just going to set up the most far-reaching surveillance effort in the country's history without some protections.

GIBSON: What are you worried about? I mean, what would be the—if they—if they did gather up all this private information, there's 280 million Americans, why would any one American need to be worried that any of this stuff would really be scrutinized and looked at closely and used against you?

WYDEN: Well let's remember how many privacy problems we have right now. I mean there have been all kinds of instances already in the private sector where people's medical records have gotten out; their financial records have gotten out. We've had a lot of violations of personal privacy right now. But I think when you link all of those electronic databases and that's what this proposal would do, you create the possibility of many more and much more serious violations.

GIBSON: Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, Senator it's good to see you and thanks very much for coming.

WYDEN: Thank you.