This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 15th, 2014. I'm

Caleb Brown. The National Security Agency allowed a contractor to walk away

with what's described as the keys to the kingdom, but the NSA also assures Americans not to worry

about the safety of their data.

In Glenn Greenwald's new book, No Place to Hide, he traces one of the most significant

stories in recent years, how Americans learned

about an extensive surveillance operation that routinely spies on US

citizens without suspicion. I spoke to Greenwald yesterday.

General Keith Alexander in I spoke to Greenwald yesterday.

General Keith Alexander in 2008 suggested, and some said it was a sort of an off-handed comment,

that essentially no internet-based conversation should go uncollected, that all signals all the time.

And it appears that that is the way, the direction that they've been moving in.

So where is the momentum in terms within the NSA

and outside the NSA on continuing that process? That is not just something that Keith Alexander said in sort of an off-handed way at a 2008 visit.

Well, that's how they care for the right.

Right, no, exactly.

That's how they tried because the quote was documented and they couldn't deny it so they tried to claim that it was just sort of an off-handed clip

Almost said in jest and so one of the things I tried to do in the book was to convey just how pervasive this motto was in terms of what the NSA sees as its

mission which is not this directed targeted focused system that's designed to monitor the communications of particular people,

but instead is literally to turn the internet into a limitless system of monitoring or surveillance.

And it isn't just an aspiration institutionally,

it's something they're extremely close to fulfilling.

...