WASHINGTON, D.C. – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) this morning joined MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd to discuss reports of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs.

You can watch the interview by clicking here and highlights are as follows:

Senator King expressed his concern with the government’s reported retention of phone records and suggested that private companies hold onto the information, allowing the government to access it as necessary: “There is one piece of it that bothers me and that is the phone data that’s gathered and held in the servers of the NSA. I don’t necessarily think that that data should be in the possession of the government. The same purpose could be served if it’s held by the company, and then when we need a warrant we go and ask the company, okay here is what it is…It’s a little unsettling to have this massive data in the government’s possession, then they have to get a warrant to look at data they already hold. I would be more comfortable, as long as it can be done technically and expeditiously without compromising the security questions at stake here, I think that might be a better way to do it. Those are the questions that I asked in the hearing last week and will continue to ask.”

Senator King also spoke to the need for classified information in order to protect our national security: “There is a chicken and egg kind of paradox built into this. You have to have classified information about what it is you’re doing so you don’t tip off the people you are trying to monitor and catch. There are people out there who want to do us harm. There is absolutely no question about that. We are making trade-offs every day.…The question is how far does it go and what are the safeguards? I think generally the safeguards are there, but it’s certainly worth discussing and saying, ‘Can we put in additional safeguards for privacy without at the same time compromising our security?’ That’s the dilemma that governments have been wrestling with for a thousand years.”

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