OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
— Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., attempting Tuesday to explain the National Security Agency’s electronic monitoring program to reporters, said the agency uses pattern analysis of millions of phone calls from the United States, even if those numbers have no known connection to terrorism. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has vigorously maintained that there are strict limits on the programs to prevent intruding on Americans’ privacy, and senior officials quickly denied Graham’s description.
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary committees, later said he misspoke and that Clapper was right: The phone records are only accessed if there is a known connection to terrorism.
— Responding to leaks about two National Security Agency programs that purportedly target foreign messages sent through U.S. Internet providers, The European Union’s top justice official, Viviane Reding, said she would demand that the U.S. afford EU citizens the same data protections as Americans. At the same time, however, Germany’s interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, confirmed that his government regularly receives tips from the United States on Islamic extremists — and he doesn’t expect the Americans to tell him where they got the information.
“The Americans don’t tell us, and we also don’t tell our partners … where this information comes from,” Friedrich said. “That’s the business of the respective agency.”
Associated Press
Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday that the government’s years-long collection of Americans’ phone records and Internet usage is necessary to fight terrorism — and does not trample on privacy rights.
But the country’s main civil liberties organization was unconvinced. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government Tuesday in New York, asking a court to order that the Obama administration end the program and purge the records it has collected.
The suit was filed as a parade of FBI and intelligence officials briefed the House in the latest attempt to soothe outrage over National Security Agency programs. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., like many members, said Tuesday that he was unaware of the scope of the data collection.
“I did not know 1 billion records a day were coming under the control of the federal executive branch,” Sherman said.
But in a rare display of cooperation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rallied behind the monitoring.
“What is clear from this information released by the (director of national intelligence) is that each of these programs is authorized by law, overseen by Congress and the courts and subject to ongoing and rigorous oversight,” McConnell said.
Reid cited public surveys this week that found backing for the programs. “The American people, in polls … support what is happening with trying to stop terrorists from doing bad things to us,” he said.
Reid also was critical of senators who have said they don’t have enough information about the programs.
“We’ve had many, many meetings that have been both classified and unclassified that members have been invited to,” he said. “They shouldn’t come and say, ‘I wasn’t aware of this,’ because they’ve had every opportunity to be aware of all these programs.”
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., conceded Tuesday that many lawmakers had failed to attend classified briefings where they could have learned more. “I think Congress has really found itself a little bit asleep at the wheel,” he said.
But one of the Senate’s staunchest critics of the surveillance programs on Tuesday questioned whether the information provided in those hearings could be trusted. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., recounted how when he asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a March Senate hearing whether the NSA collects data on millions of Americans, Clapper said it did not.
Not fully believing Clapper’s public denial of the program, Wyden said he asked Clapper privately afterward whether he wanted to stick with a firm ‘no’ to the question. On Tuesday, he called for hearings to discuss the programs.
“The American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives,” Wyden said.
He was also among a group of senators who introduced legislation to force the government to declassify opinions of a secret court that authorizes the surveillance.
Clapper’s spokesman did not comment on Wyden’s statement. But in an interview with NBC News earlier this week, Clapper said he “responded in what I thought was the most truthful or least most untruthful manner, by saying, ‘No,’ ” because the program was classified.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will be briefed on the programs again Thursday.
While Wyden continued to question the government’s electronic monitoring, several key lawmakers, including House Speaker John Boehner, sought to refocus the furor on Edward Snowden, the elusive 29-year-old former intelligence contractor who is claiming responsibility for revealing the surveillance programs to two newspapers.
“He’s a traitor,” Boehner said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“The disclosure of this information puts Americans at risk,” Boehner said. “It shows our adversaries what our capabilities are. And it’s a giant violation of the law.”
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., on Monday called Snowden’s disclosures “treason.” Feinstein said Snowden should be prosecuted.
Only one American — fugitive al-Qaida propaganda chief Adam Gadahn — has been charged with treason since the World War II era. A law enforcement official said Tuesday that prosecutors were building a case against Snowden and had not decided what charges would be brought against him.
Snowden, who was formally fired Tuesday from his job with government contracting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, was last seen in Hong Kong. Hus current whereabouts are unknown.
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