N.S.A. Disclosures Put Awkward Light on Previous Denials
By SCOTT SHANE and JONATHAN WEISMAN
The discovery that the National Security Agency routinely collects
information on American citizens has left the Obama administration
struggling to explain previous statements that seem, at best,
misleading.
By SCOTT SHANE and JONATHAN WEISMAN
Published: June 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — For years, intelligence officials have tried to debunk what they called a popular myth about the National Security Agency:
that its electronic net routinely sweeps up information about millions
of Americans. In speeches and Congressional testimony, they have
suggested that the agency’s immense power is focused exclusively on
terrorists and other foreign targets, and that it does not invade
Americans’ privacy.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has said the
programs were authorized by law and rigorously overseen by Congress and
courts.
Win Mcnamee/Getty Images
Senator Ron Wyden has called for public hearings to address the disclosures.
But since the disclosures last week showing that the agency does indeed
routinely collect data on the phone calls of millions of Americans,
Obama administration officials have struggled to explain what now appear
to have been misleading past statements. Much of the attention has been
focused on testimony by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national
intelligence, to the Senate in March that the N.S.A. was not gathering
data on millions of Americans.
When lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Tuesday for the first time
since the N.S.A. disclosures, however, the criticism was muted.
In carefully delivered statements, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio;
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader; and Senator Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, all said the programs were
authorized by law and rigorously overseen by Congress and courts.
In contrast, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat whose questioning
prompted Mr. Clapper’s statement in March, stepped up his criticism of
how intelligence officials portrayed the surveillance programs and
called for public hearings to address the disclosures. “The American
people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence
leadership to the questions asked by their representatives,” he said in a
statement.
And Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, said he had
come away from a closed-door briefing by intelligence officials for
House members believing that the N.S.A. had too much latitude and too
little oversight.
“Right now we have a situation where the executive branch is getting a
billion records a day, and we’re told they will not query that data
except pursuant to very clear standards. But we don’t have the courts
making sure that those standards are always followed,” Mr. Sherman said.
But many lawmakers trained their sights on Edward J. Snowden, the
intelligence contractor who leaked classified documents to The Guardian
and The Washington Post. Mr. Boehner called him a traitor.
Mr. McConnell told reporters: “Given the scope of these programs, it’s
understandable that many would be concerned about issues related to
privacy. But what’s difficult to understand is the motivation of
somebody who intentionally would seek to warn the nation’s enemies of
lawful programs created to protect the American people. And I hope that
he is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The comments of the Senate leaders showed a coordinated effort to
squelch any legislative move t to rein in the surveillance programs. Mr.
Reid took the unusual step of publicly slapping back at fellow senators
— including senior Democrats — who have suggested most lawmakers have
been kept in the dark about the issue.
“For senators to complain that they didn’t know this was happening, we
had many, many meeting that have been both classified and unclassified
that members have been invited to,” Mr. Reid said. “They shouldn’t come
and say, ‘I wasn’t aware of this’ because they’ve had every
opportunity.”
Among lawmakers who have expressed concerns in the past, however, the
issues have not been laid to rest. When reporters pressed Mr. Wyden on
whether Mr. Clapper had lied to him, he stopped short of making that accusation, but made his discontent clear.
“The president has said — correctly in my view — that strong
Congressional oversight is absolutely essential in this area. It’s not
possible for the Congress to do the kind of vigorous oversight that the
president spoke about if you can’t get straight answers,” he said.
At the March Senate hearing, Mr. Wyden asked Mr. Clapper, “Does the
N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of
millions of Americans?”
“No, sir,” Mr. Clapper replied. “Not wittingly.”
Mr. Wyden said on Tuesday that he had sent his question to Mr. Clapper’s
office a day before the hearing, and gave his office a chance to
correct the misstatement after the hearing, but to no avail.
Related
-
A.C.L.U. Files Lawsuit Seeking to Stop the Collection of Domestic Phone Logs (June 12, 2013)
-
3 Tech Giants Want to Reveal Data Requests (June 12, 2013)
-
The Caucus: Poll Finds Disapproval of Record Collection, but Little Personal Concern (June 11, 2013)
-
Boehner Calls Snowden a Traitor (June 11, 2013)
In an interview on Sunday with NBC News, Mr. Clapper acknowledged that
his answer had been problematic, calling it “the least untruthful”
answer he could give.
Michael V. Hayden, the former director of both N.S.A. and the C.I.A.,
said he considered Mr. Wyden’s question unfair, given the classified
subject. “There’s not another country in the world where that question
would have been asked and answered in a public session,” he said.
Some other statements of N.S.A. officials appear in retrospect to offer a
mistaken impression of the agency’s collection of information about
Americans. Mr. Wyden said he pressed Mr. Clapper on the matter because
he was dissatisfied with what he felt were misleading answers from Gen.
Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A. director. And in a recent speech, the
N.S.A.’s general counsel, Rajesh De, sought to debunk what he called
“false myths” about the agency, including the idea that “N.S.A. is
spying on Americans at home and abroad with questionable or no legal
basis.”
While that may be literally true — there is a legal basis — it appears
awkward in retrospect that Mr. De’s defense of the agency failed to
mention its collection of phone data on Americans.
“It’s a fine line he was treading,” said Matthew M. Aid, an intelligence
historian and author of “The Secret Sentry,” a 2009 book on the N.S.A.
“But trying to talk around these secret programs just makes matters
worse.”
The solution, he said, is for intelligence officials to share more
information about what the N.S.A. does and why. “Actually be forthright
with the American people,” he said.
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that she had asked
General Alexander to declassify more information about the surveillance
programs — such as terrorist plots that might have been foiled — to help
explain their usefulness.
“If we can get that declassified, we can speak much more clearly,” she said.
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