This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, June 7th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The National Security Agency has been seizing phone records of Americans,

has been harvesting all manner of internet communications from major internet providers

and now has a vast trove of Americans credit card transactions as well.

All revealed essentially the same day.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies, all revealed essentially the same day.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,

discusses the revelations.

General Keith Alexander about a year ago at the American Enterprise Institute said that a specific Utah State Data Center

would not be holding Americans data.

That was the short answer he gave.

And with this new revelation revelation how does that stack up?

It's hard to square General Alexander's flat statement that the NSA does not

have information on Americans with statements we've heard in the last days

from members of Congress defending this program for what it's done with

Americans personal information. So I think we need to know more as a public. We need to demand more of our Congress

to understand exactly what's happening here. And probably the starting point is to stop with the

secret courts administering secret law. Now Diane Feinstein has been a big defender of this program.

Is there any reason for her to change her mind at this point?

She's known this information information presumably for some time.

Well we don't know what Senator Feinstein knows. She's quite fond of standing on a dais

...