WASHINGTON – National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said Wednesday that “there isn’t a better way’’ to help defend the country from potential terror threats than the ongoing and controversial bulk collection of telephone records involving millions of Americans.
“There is no other way to connect the dots,’’ Alexander told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a renewed defense of NSA surveillance programs whose details were disclosed this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. “We cannot go back to a pre-9/11 moment.’’
Alexander said the national security threat has been mounting in recent months, and the “crisis in the Middle East is growing.’’
“Taking these programs off the table is not the thing to do,’’ Alexander said.
Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate panel, who have hosted a series of hearings since the stream of Snowden’s disclosures were first made public in June, raised questions about more recent revelations that billions of records were collected daily to map the locations of cellphones and users around the world. This week, new information disclosed by Snowden outlined the surveillance of online gaming.
“Because we can do something, it doesn’t really make sense to do it,’’ Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said, adding that aspects of the bulk collection programs are “beyond extraordinary in the U.S.’’
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the panel’s ranking Republican, said some of the recent disclosures “call into serious question whether the law and other safeguards currently in place strike the right balance between protecting our civil liberties and our national security.’’
Those questions have prompted a raft of proposed legislation that seeks to alter the nation’s surveillance strategy.
Leahy is the sponsor of one proposal that would severely restrict the NSA’s bulk-collection programs. He said that although some might regard Snowden as a “hero,’’ the former contractor’s disclosures have “created grave problems’’ for the nation amid revelations about its surveillance of other world leaders.
He asked Alexander for assurances that the NSA had bolstered its internal security in the aftermath of Snowden’s alleged security breaches.
Alexander said the agency has implemented 41 separate actions that have “drastically improved’’ internal security.
The NSA director said authorities were reviewing three cases that could result in discipline related to the unauthorized Snowden disclosures.
“His job was to move data,’’ Alexander said, referring to Snowden’s NSA duties. “His job was to do exactly what he did.”
Snowden, charged with espionage-related offenses related to the unauthorized disclosures, is living in Russia where he has been granted temporary asylum.
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