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MOVING TO STAMP down a public uproar spurred by the disclosure of two secret surveillance programs, the nation’s top intelligence official is declassifying key details about one of the programs while insisting the efforts were legal, limited in scope and necessary to detect terrorist threats.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, in an unusual late-night statement, denounced the leaks of highly classified documents that revealed the programs and warned that America’s security will suffer. He called the disclosure of a program that targets foreigners’ internet use “reprehensible,” and said the leak of another program that lets the government collect Americans’ phone records would affect how America’s enemies behave and make it harder to understand their intentions.
His statement comes as The Guardian reveals that the National Security Agency had also obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants.
At the same time, he offered new information about both programs, saying he wanted to correct the “misleading impression” created by out-of-context news articles even as he acknowledged that publicly discussing the programs comes with inherent security risks.
Only 24 hours after the phone records program’s existence was first revealed publicly, Clapper took the rare step of declassifying and publicly releasing details about the authority used to authorize it, including that it’s reviewed by a special court every three months and that the data collected can only be culled when there’s reasonable suspicion — backed by facts — that the information is connected to a foreign terrorist group.
The Obama administration’s defense of the two programs came as members of Congress were vowing to change a program they voted to authorize and exasperated civil liberties advocates were crying foul, questioning how President Barack Obama, a former constitutional scholar who sought privacy protections as a US senator, could embrace policies with strong echoes of President George W. Bush, whose approach to national security he had vowed to leave behind.
At issue were two National Security Agency programs that came to light late Wednesday and Thursday after highly classified documents were leaked to the media.
A top-secret court order, first disclosed by the Guardian newspaper in Britain, requires the communications company Verizon to turn over on an “ongoing, daily basis” the records of all landline and mobile telephone calls of its customers, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
Another secret program came to light when The Washington Post and The Guardian reported that the NSA and FBI can scour the nation’s main Internet companies, extracting audio, video, emails and other documents to help analysts track a person’s movements and contacts. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple were all included. Most denied giving the government direct access.
Clapper alleged that articles about the internet program “contain numerous inaccuracies.” He did not specify what those inaccuracies might be.
Senior administration officials defended the programs as critical tools and said the intelligence they yield is among the most valuable data the US collects. Clapper said the internet program, known as PRISM, can’t be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the US He said a special court, Congress and the executive branch all oversee the program and that data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum.
The phone records program, too, has been taken out of context, Clapper alleged. His defense was echoed hours earlier by leaders of Congress’ intelligence panels, who dismissed the furor over what they said was standard three-month renewal to a program that’s operated for seven years. Committee leaders also said the program recently helped thwart what would have been a significant domestic terrorist attack.
The NSA must collect the phone data in broad swaths, Clapper said, because collecting it narrowly would make it harder to identify terrorism-related communications. The court prohibits the government from indiscriminately rummaging through the phone data without evidence of a terrorist group connection, he said.
I think the USA is a wonderful country with lovely honest wonderful kind people. As a nation they go out of their way to aid other less well off countries………. please take note of my ip address as i may be looking for a visa soon.
I don’t know why this would be a surprise to anyone. We know that these companies are storing data, why wouldn’t the US government appropriate and mine that data.
Look at the major push for big data. Right now companies are analyzing streams of unstructured data, such as twitter feeds, to ascertain mood and perception about their products, and to gather information about their customers to previously unimaginable ways.
How could the intelligence agencies not be using this data in the same fashion? So that covers what’s posted in ‘public’, why would they not require US-domiciled companies to provide for the ‘private’ persona of users?
If your name came up in so-called chatter, it seems obvious that intelligence officers would want access to your private photos, feeds, see where you’ve been hanging out, see who you’ve been hanging out with.
Anyone using online storage, email, photo buckets etc is naive in the extreme if you think that information is genuinely private.
“The Director of National Intelligence has denounced the leaks of highly classified documents that revealed the programs”. – The bloody irony in that line is truly flabbergasting!
It’s the Land of the ‘Free’, don’t you know….
An awful lot more free than some places that come to mind…..
“….they’ve got booze and TV, and tramps the telephone booths..”
Everyone go online and type in, let’s see now, back-packs V’s 72 Virgins-who is the real winner?
And sum computer will melt down in the Pentagon.
One day I will be in the white house presiding over the worlds most powerful nation because I am the one and only.
The whole ,war on terror , excuse has been used to erode civil liberties in the US since 2001.The Obama administration has been even more obsessed with secrecy than Bush, they even have the right now to kill American citizens at home or abroad that they deem to be a threat with out any judicial process. This is how police states start, creeping erosion of civil rights a muted press and warnings of threats from unknown groups at home and abroad to panic and silence dissent .
Its all for the free market! Might be shit, especially for the collateral damage, but its why we, in the west, are rich and have all the nice stuff and comfortable lifestyles!
The US is a police state. Anyone that ever lived there knows that everything you do is monitored.
Microsoft’s new slogan “Your privacy is our priority” takes on a whole new meaning in the context of NSA wiretapping.
I am also worried cause that guy looks like “Fixer” Mike from Breaking Bad!
‘Tapped’ can be another word for ‘f***ed’…
Coincidentally, the sentence means the same if you substitute them…
Freedom comes with a price.
Then it’s not really freedom
Exactly there is no such thing as freedom. Goverments control the population . Look at our own as a perfect example.
Freedom is a myth.
Depends what you mean by freedom. Are you free to enter and leave the country? Yes. Are you free to start fires where you like? No.
And that price is a buck o’ five
Elsa was free.
Born free, free as the wind blows
Remember all the slaggin people got for saying that this was going on. Called consiracy nutters, I believe.
This is no big deal–the Irish government has been data-mining postcards since the 1930s.
The gargantuan amount of money spent on homeland security cost vs dividends , its all for what ?.
Behind this is a man called Cass Sunstein who is married to Dublin born Samantha Power [ just appointed as US ambassador to the UN]. Both of them have murkey track records and he is a big fan of internet control.
Years ago for college research , I created 3 email accounts with 3 seperate providers. I opened both accounts and put, lets just say, a dodgy subject matter in one heading while a meaningless subject matter in the other email heading. I copied and pasted 3 paragraphs from a famous novel in to both email bodies and I entered the intended recipient’s email as being the 3rd account.
I hit send first with the dodgy email and then counted to 20, then sent the meaningless email.
Logged into the 3rd email account and saw that the 2nd email with the meaningless subject matter had arrived first.
I did it again, rhis time swapping accounts and even waiting longer the result was the same. That was in 2004.
Tapping or not its still a better run country than this place
For all Ireland’s faults, we don’t go around the world killing people indiscriminately and with no judicial oversight.
Ah Barry, please now.
Like Jihadists Seamus?
So if jihadists do it its ok for the US to do it? Bearing in mind the US has been carrying out and sponsering extrajudicial killings (amongst other objectionable actions) for a long time againts all sorts of people, not just Muslim extremists. And we (the west) are supposed to be better then the extremists because of things like due process etc… Not because we’re better at murder!
No. Because we live in a society – for all it’s faults – that does not expect us to live in the Middle Ages – or treat women like subhumans.
Really Barry? With 16 trillion debt and the rest…HAHA
OK, so the US governent now knows I’m a lolcat lover who’s obsessed with snowboarding videos
So now when Google or Facebook asks me for my mobile number to verify my account, I’ll give them your number.
America,fcuk yeah,coming to save the motherfcucking universe
but hey but look how well it worked in Boston…sure all that data in the hands of civil servants, what could possibly go wrong, I mean look here how well the oink oinks manage PULSE, safe.
Wow ! If a guy looked like he was born to be Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence ( or a decent Bond villain ) it is James Clapper !!
Agreed , would stop a terrorist at 100 paces with a stare like that.
Ah the anti-American sentiment spilling over again. Be careful what you wish for folks. The alternative wants to drag us back to the Middle Ages.
Have you an agenda or are you just that stupid?
No Jason. A realist. Unlike the anti-American lunatics on this thread. Stupidity doesn’t even begin TK cover some of the comments? As for an agenda – are YOU actual that stupid?? Or do you just dislike people pointing out the glaringly obvious?!
What I find stupid is that you people think there are good guys and bad guys like in the movies! Yeah, I hate America. It is an evil nation and everything about it’s attitude to the world is ugly. Does that make NK, Iran, the Taliban or anyone else the good guys? No! So America has toppled democracys and propped up dictators, so what? They’re not the only ones. And you people would do well to remember that you get to sit there commenting on this artice on the internet with your pc or smartphone while having a full belly and little risk of being blown up because of the west and its often violent persuit of the ultimate free market. But don’t for a second think that somebody else wouldnt do the same, or worse, if they could!
“You people” Lol! As opposed to good guys v bad guys it’s a case of societies where (in as much as possible) people are equal and enjoy relatively limitless freedoms vs societies where bigots in frocks wish to suppress all freedoms. And export that rubbish to the West.
Was chili exporting this when America put Pinochet in power? The biggest exporter of extremism on the planet is Saudi Arabia and they’re America’s main ally in the middle east. All the afghans exported before the invasion was heroin. So I don’t think its as clear cut or good versus evil as you would like to think!
It is very much cut and dried Gearoid!
Yeah, because the entire planet only consists of Muslim extremists and the united states. The world is not that simple and black and white. And I think its niaive to think it is. Reminds me of being 6 years old watching westerns on a Sunday afternoon!
Whatever floats your boat Gearoid. Any different to paranoids depicting the USA as a bogey man? Reminds me of those ghost stories we were told also at age 5 :)
Slightly different, considering the chili reference is based on senate hearings, declassified documents (all available to the public) from the CIA and chilian authorities and tens of thousands of eye witness accounts. Not to mention the trials of Pinochet and his accomplices. As for America being allied with Saudi Arabia, all you need to do there is watch the news. No conspiracys there. They are openly allied to them, one of, if not the monst oppressive regime in the world. And the home of wahabism and osama bin laden. As for Afghanistan, well, most people never heard of the Taliban till NATO invaded so if they were exporting terrorism they werent doing a great job!
Disqus is a nice handy app for the gatherers of data as you have to have an account with them whatever to post comments on almost every newssite in the world.
Look at clapper’s face, resembles :(
I hope no one is reading my twitter posts !
It follows then that posts made on websites through facebook/twitter login (for example on TheJournal.ie) probably end up being automatically rifled through by some NSA crawler. Can we have a login system on here outside of Facebook/Twitter please?
Absolutely none of this surprises me, of course they’re gonna trawl social media and email for information, and they have the ability to do it. Online privacy is weak at best.
The likes of Microsoft, FB, Apple etc might well be the losers in this. People might become more cagey about sharing online if news like this continues to come out.
Is Twitter mentioned anywhere, by the way?
Are you familiar with the concept of a false dichotomy, Eamonn?
Cuddle – some like to call it that to cloud the issue.
have your say