Want proof that NSA snooping thwarts terror plots? Stand by, senator says.

Efforts are afoot to declassify some examples of terrorist plots thwarted by controversial NSA surveillance programs, perhaps by next week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Thursday after senators met with US intelligence officials.

|
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaks to the media after attending a meeting regarding National Security Agency programs, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday.

Americans will soon be able to judge for themselves the merits of National Security Agency programs to vacuum up massive amounts of digital data, because intelligence officials hope to declassify terrorist attacks thwarted by the controversial data-mining systems as early as Monday, the Senate’s top lawmaker on intelligence issues said Thursday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is working to declassify some examples of terrorist plots in the US and abroad that were thwarted by sweeping NSA phone-call and social-media data-collection systems. Mr. Clapper has previously said such surveillance efforts helped to block "dozens" of potential attacks.

Lawmakers who support the NSA’s intelligence gathering programs say they expect that the release of such information will significantly quell public outrage over them. New details about the programs came to light last week after they were leaked by self-described whistleblower and NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“I hope at some point the order of magnitude of what they’ve done to keep America safe will become public,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R) of Tennesee after a closed-door briefing for senators with Clapper and other security officials. “It is my hope that that information, especially, will be declassified.”

Asked about Clapper’s claims that these programs foiled dozens of attacks, Senator Feinstein replied, “There’s more than you think.”

The scope and substance of NSA data-collection techniques have become a concern on Capitol Hill since Mr. Snowden, who held a top security clearance, leaked information on the programs to two newspapers.

Feinstein said one of the first legislative fixes will be to limit or prevent contractors from handling “highly classified technical data.”

She spoke after a classified briefing inside the Capitol. Besides Clapper, six national security officials, including representatives from the NSA, the FBI, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, spoke with nearly half the Senate’s members, Feinstein said.

Feinstein and the intelligence panel’s top Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, have provided evidence that senators were offered briefings on the details of the NSA programs for several years. Even so, many senators expressed bewilderment and concern over the NSA’s ability to collect vast troves of data after the leaked NSA information hit the news media.  

Thursday's meeting was senators' second closed-door briefing with security officials since the program details were brought to light, and several senators said afterward that they now feel more comfortable with NSA actions.

“I wouldn’t say [my concerns] were 100 percent resolved, but I think some very good steps were taken today,” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R) of Nebraska, who had expressed concern about the NSA data-gathering earlier in the week. “I’m not sure I came out with a master's-degree understanding of it, but it was certainly a step in the right direction.”

Not everyone in the Senate felt the same way.

Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky, at a press conference earlier Thursday, decried the NSA’s "overreach" and vowed to sue the agency.

Leaving the intelligence briefing, Senator Paul had little to add: He pantomimed zipping and locking his lips as he shooed reporters away.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Want proof that NSA snooping thwarts terror plots? Stand by, senator says.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0613/Want-proof-that-NSA-snooping-thwarts-terror-plots-Stand-by-senator-says
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe