Edward Snowden NSA files: Guardian should be prosecuted, says Tory MP

Julian Smith speech to Commons attacked as McCarthyite by Labour MPs, furious at being prevented from speaking

• Rowena Mason
  
  
• The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013 19.45 BST
  

The Guardian offices in London. Julian Smith MP has called for the newspaper to be prosecuted for its coverage of the NSA files leaked by Edward Snowden Photograph: David Levene

A Conservative MP has attacked the Guardian for publishing stories about mass surveillance by the security services based on leaks from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Speaking in parliament Julian Smith, MP for Skipton and Ripon, said that the newspaper had broken the law and should be prosecuted.But Smith's address was condemned as McCarthyism and "absolute scaremongering" by Labour MPs who were prevented from making speeches.
Several MPs criticised the format of the parliamentary debate as they were denied an opportunity to intervene while Smith read out his speech and then the Home Office minister James Brokenshire gave the government's view that the Guardian's publication of the Snowden leaks had damaged national security.
Smith had called the debate in Westminster Hall to raise concerns in parliament about the way the Guardian handled the Snowden files. The backbencher, who made a complaint about the Guardian to the police, criticised the newspaper for writing stories "with no consultation with government".
He said: "In spite of the actions taken by the government to destroy the files held in the Guardian's London office, these files are out there, highly vulnerable to terrorist infiltration, and not just that these detailed files on GCHQ operations are now handed to an infinite number of extra eyes via American journalists and even bloggers. Each person multiplies the risk to this country. The Guardian focused on sending abroad revelations not about the American NSA or whistleblowing. They chose to distribute information about our own intelligence agents and GCHQ … To communicate, not just publish, any identifying information about GCHQ personnel is a terrorist offence. This is not press freedom this is the Guardian's devastating impact on national security."
Smith's allegations were challenged by a number of Labour and Tory MPs. David Davis, a former Tory leadership candidate, and Dominic Raab, MP for Esher and Walton, asked why, if there had been harm to national security, there had been no charges against anyone related to the Guardian.
Denied the chance to intervene, Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, asked why he was barred making a short speech."This is a piece of McCarthyite scaremongering and it disgraces parliament."
David Winnick, MP for Walsall North, was forced to use a technical point of order to get his point across. He said: "A lot of what appeared in the Guardian that has been the subject of this debate has made certainly the US go into a wide-ranging inquiry into intelligence gathering, and what the Guardian has published has certainly been in the public interest."
He later called the debate disgraceful saying the minister read his speech like a robot.
However, Smith was backed by Julian Lewis, a member of the Commons intelligence and security committee, who said he would expect to be charged if he had released information as the Guardian had done.
Brokenshire, for the government, said he wanted to highlight the "huge damage to national security caused by reporting attributed to the highly classified material stolen by Edward Snowden". He added: "There is no doubt Snowden's actions and publication of material stolen by him have damaged UK national security." Brokenshire said: "I cannot go into more detail of the damage done and the future damage. But we expect to lose coverage of some very dangerous individuals and groups."
On Tuesday a spokesperson for Guardian News & Media said Smith's speech "propagated a series of myths" about the Guardian's reporting of the Snowden documents. "When responsible journalists working on the same story share documents they are engaged in journalism not terrorism. Senior politicians and government officials in the UK and internationally, over 30 of the world's leading newspaper editors, and an overwhelming majority of the public, have all said that the Guardian's reporting on this story is important for democracy."
She added: "They all agree, as does Mr Smith, that surveillance of citizens by intelligence agencies is a legitimate subject for debate. But there would be no public debate had there been no disclosure."
Davis suggested Smith should be more concerned that UK government secrets were "accessible to hundreds of thousands of US government employees", including Snowden, if he was so worried about national security.
Paul Farrelly, Labour MP for Newcastle-Under-Lyme, said he wanted it put on the record that "none other than Obama has said some of these disclosures raise legitimate questions for our friends and allies about how these capabilities are employed". He also said the attack on the Guardian was "in danger of being misinterpreted potentially as joining the war of the Mail and other people, all because of its pursuit of phone hacking". Smith denied those accusations.

It's the spies, not the leaks, that threaten our security

The NSA-GCHQ machine is about global power, not protecting its citizens. US and British intelligence still fuel the terror threat

• • Seumas Milne
    
    
  • The Guardian, Thursday 24 October 2013 05.06 AEST
    
  • Jump to comments (216)
    

GCHQ: much of what it does 'has nothing to do with terrorism or security at all'. Photograph: GCHQ / BRITISH MINISTRY OF DEFENCE / HANDOUT/EPA

The war on terror has been a boon to the British intelligence services. After decades in which they became notorious for "counter-subversion" operations against political activists and trade unionists, colluding with death squads in Northern Ireland and helping the US to overthrow elected governments around the world, the spooks have at last had a chance to play the good guys.
Instead of the seedy anti-democratic gang that plotted against a Labour prime minister, they can claim to be the first line of defence against indiscriminate attacks on the streets of Britain. MI5 has well over doubled in size in the past 10 years. Glamorised beyond parody in TV dramas such as Spooks, the spying agencies' uncheckable pronouncements about their exploits and supposed triumphs are routinely relayed by the media as fact. The same has been true in the US, but on a far larger canvas.
So faced with the avalanche of leaks from the National Security Agency and GCHQ about the epic scale of their blanket electronic surveillance, both at home and abroad, the masters of Anglo-American espionage have played the "national security" card for all it's worth. The revelations of NSA contractor Edward Snowden in the Guardian have been a "gift" to terrorists, the head of MI5 Andrew Parker claimed, eagerly supported by the prime minister. The leaks were the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever", insisted David Omand, the former head of GCHQ. They were cheered on by the trusties of the British press a fertile recruiting ground for British intelligence and the CIA over many years. National security has been imperilled, they all warned, as Tory demands for the Guardian to be prosecuted have grown.
In reality, national security is a catchphrase so elastic as to be meaningless. As MI5 helpfully explains, government policy is "not to define the term, in order to retain the flexibility ... to adapt to changing circumstances" in other words, political expediency.
If it simply meant protecting citizens from bombs on buses and trains, of course, most people would sign up for that. But as the Snowden leaks have moved from capability to content, it's been driven home that much of what NSA and GCHQ (virtually one organisation) are up to has nothing to do with terrorism or security at all, but, as might be expected, the exercise of naked state power to gain political and economic advantage.
In the past few days the French have discovered (courtesy of Le Monde) that the NSA harvested 70m digital communications in France in one month, with special focus on French-American telecoms firm Alcatel-Lucent, while the Mexicans have learned (via Der Spiegel) that their president's emails were hacked into by US intelligence to "plan international investments" and strengthen US diplomatic leverage.
Something similar happened to Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff, just as world leaders were targeted at the G20, while India and Germany were among other countries treated to the full electronic harvest treatment. Terrorism was clearly well down the priority list.
The protests of French and other western governments, which of course have their own, less effective espionage capability and collude with the US across the board, are largely for public consumption. France was among several European states that cravenly bowed to US pressure toforce the Bolivian president Evo Morales's aircraft to land this summer, in a hamfisted attempt to kidnap the elusive whistleblower Snowden.
But it is the scale and reach of the NSA-GCHQ operation and the effective global empire it is used to police that sets it apart. And when it comes to terrorism, the evidence is that the US and British intelligence agencies are fuelling it as much as fighting it.
Take drone attacks, which are Obama's weapon of choice in the new phase of the war on terror. They are reckoned to have killed up to 3,613(926 of them civilians, including 200 children) in Pakistan alone. Amnesty International this week argued that US officials should stand trial over evidence of war crimes in the Pakistan drone campaign. Human Rights Watch has made a similar case over the slaughter in Yemen.
The drone war is run by the CIA and US military. But, as the Snowden leaks confirm (this time in the Washington Post), the NSA is intimately involved in what are often anything but "targeted killings" as is GCHQ, now facing legal action in London over war crimes brought by the son of a Pakistani victim of a 2011 drone attack. Drones have, as the New York Times put it, "replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants", cited as justification by jihadists for attacks on western cities.
The same goes for the role of US and British intelligence, serviced by theNSA and GCHQ, in a decade of torture and state kidnapping. As the evidence of MI5 and MI6 complicity with CIA black sites, "extraordinary rendition", waterboarding and genital mutilation has built up from Bagram to Guantánamo, Pakistan to Morocco court case has followed police investigation. You might call it a recruitment "gift" to al-Qaida. But neither the agencies nor the politicians supposed to supervise them have yet been held to account.
Meanwhile, despite its multiple failures, the war on terror keeps expanding, spreading terror as it goes. The new front is Africa, where theUS military is now involved in 49 out of 54 states. Two years after what was supposed to have been a successful intervention in Libya, the country is again on the brink of a new civil war, its prime minister begging to be rescued from the backlash over another US kidnapping.
It's a democratic necessity that the Snowden leaks are used to bring some genuine accountability to the NSA-GCHQ machine and its lawless industrial-scale espionage. But to frame the controversy as a trade-off between security and privacy misses the wider picture. The main western intelligence agencies are instruments of global dominance, whose role in the rest of the world has a direct impact on their own citizens. It's not the revelations that threaten our security, but the agencies and their political masters themselves.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...n-security

zerohedge ‏3m
GERMAN FEDERAL PROSECUTOR OBSERVING POSSIBLE MERKEL PHONE TAP. Obama to be sued in the Hague? stay tuned

Quote:Angela Merkel demanded an explanation from Barack Obama, saying tapping her mobile was completely unacceptable'. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

Here's a better photo.And,Angie looks real pissed,eh?Angela should give Dilma a call and get a few pointers on how to really react to personal privacy invasions......

HOW TO EAVESDROP ON A FORMER NSA CHIEF ON A TRAIN

Thursday, October 24, 2013 - 05:27 PM

By PJ Vogt

• 
  

Former NSA head Michael Hayden took the train today. He spent his time on the phone, giving interviews to reporters in which he asked to be identified only as an anonymous former senior administration official. What Hayden didn't know was that ex-MoveOn'er Tom Matzzie was sitting within earshot and livetweeting Hayden's anonymous conversations. Oops.

Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing "on background as a former senior admin official" Sounds defensive.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden talking about a famous blackberry now.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden was bragging about rendition and black sites a minute ago.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Michael Hayden on Acela giving reporters disparaging quotes about admin. "Remember, just refer as former senior admin"#exNSAneedsadayjob
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: Michael Hayden was talking to Massimo Calabresi at TIME I am pretty sure. Does he tweet?
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden just ended last of handful of interviews bashing admin.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela listening to former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden give "off record" interviews. I feel like I'm in the NSA. Except I'm in public.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: phone ringing. I think the jig is up. Maybe somebody is telling him I'm here. Do I hide?
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden's office eventually called to tell him that he was being spied on. At which point Hayden said hello to Mattzie and the two snapped a photo. Not a bad sport, considering.

Win pic.twitter.com/tsJHqjv1LM
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/eavesdro...ad-amtrak/

Magda Hassan Wrote:HOW TO EAVESDROP ON A FORMER NSA CHIEF ON A TRAIN

Thursday, October 24, 2013 - 05:27 PM

By PJ Vogt

• 
  

Former NSA head Michael Hayden took the train today. He spent his time on the phone, giving interviews to reporters in which he asked to be identified only as an anonymous former senior administration official. What Hayden didn't know was that ex-MoveOn'er Tom Matzzie was sitting within earshot and livetweeting Hayden's anonymous conversations. Oops.

Former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden on Acela behind me blabbing "on background as a former senior admin official" Sounds defensive.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden talking about a famous blackberry now.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden was bragging about rendition and black sites a minute ago.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Michael Hayden on Acela giving reporters disparaging quotes about admin. "Remember, just refer as former senior admin"#exNSAneedsadayjob
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: Michael Hayden was talking to Massimo Calabresi at TIME I am pretty sure. Does he tweet?
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden just ended last of handful of interviews bashing admin.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela listening to former NSA spy boss Michael Hayden give "off record" interviews. I feel like I'm in the NSA. Except I'm in public.
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

On Acela: phone ringing. I think the jig is up. Maybe somebody is telling him I'm here. Do I hide?
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

Hayden's office eventually called to tell him that he was being spied on. At which point Hayden said hello to Mattzie and the two snapped a photo. Not a bad sport, considering.

Win pic.twitter.com/tsJHqjv1LM
Tom Matzzie (@tommatzzie) October 24, 2013

http://www.onthemedia.org/story/eavesdro...ad-amtrak/

You's think he would understand the meaning of the word "security" would't you?

The first Tweet was @ 1:20 and the last @ 1:57 - and elapsed time of 37 minutes, which just goes to show how real time surveillance is as presumably his old firm was keeping tabs on him and alerted him to the fact he was being listened to.

35 world leaders surveilled by NSA:

Quote:Germany and France demand talks with US over NSA spying revelations

German chancellor Angela Merkel says allies need to rebuild trust after reports her phone was monitored by US spies
Follow James Ball by emailBETA

• Sam Jones, James Ball and agencies
  
• theguardian.com, Friday 25 October 2013 08.55 BST
  
• Jump to comments (156)
  

Angela Merkel's anger at reports her phone was tapped has prompted her to call for changes in the way the US deals with its allies. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The French and German governments have demanded talks with the US by the end of the year as the row over the spying activities of the US National Security Agency intensifies.
Their calls follow reports that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, had her phone monitored by the NSA and reports that the agency eavesdropped on calls made by members of the French administration.
The revelations are threatening to create a major rift between the US and its European allies. The former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that such activities had to be curtailled. "There is no reason to spy on Angela Merkel. It's a real scandal," he said. "A new agreement is needed between the EU and the US; this cannot continue.
Others, however, were less shocked by recent reports. "I can't believe anyone is terribly surprised," Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, told the same programme. Volker said every government tried to collect the best possible information, adding: "As a government official for many years I assumed that my cellphone and email account were susceptible to spying."
The controversy deepened on Thursday when the Guardian revealed theNSA had monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department. The latest claims, which emerged from a classified document provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, have further overshadowed this week's EU summit in Brussels.
Despite US efforts to placate Merkel including a phonecall made by the US president, Barack Obama, on Wednesday she has refused to conceal her anger over the issue. "We need trust among allies and partners," Merkel told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. "Such trust now has to be built anew. This is what we have to think about."
Although the US and Europe were allies facing the same challenges, she said, "such an alliance can only be built on trust. That's why I repeat again: spying among friends, that cannot be." She added: "It's become clear that for the future, something must change and significantly.
"We will put all efforts into forging a joint understanding by the end of the year for the co-operation of the [intelligence] agencies between Germanyand the US and France and the US, to create a framework for the co-operation."
Her sentiments were echoed by the French president, François Hollande. "What is at stake is preserving our relations with the United States," he said. "They should not be changed because of what has happened. But trust has to be restored and reinforced."
The latest confidential memo provided by Snowden reveals that the NSAencourages senior officials in its "customer" departments such the White House, State and the Pentagon to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.
The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.
After Merkel's allegations became public, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. But that failed to quell the row, as officials in Berlin quickly pointed out that the US did not deny monitoring her phone in the past.
Earlier, it was reported that the US had denied ever spying on the British prime minister, David Cameron. Caitlin Hayden, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told the Daily Telegraph: "We do not monitor PM Cameron's communications."
Asked if the US had ever spied on Cameron in the past, she replied: "No."
The prime minister's official spokesman refused to comment, saying: "I'm not going to comment on matters of security or intelligence."
Britain and the US along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand are members of the so-called Five Eyes group, who share signals intelligence and are supposed not to spy on each other.

NSA "uber-leaker" Edward Snowden has reportedly considered sharing his personal testimony with Congress over Skype.
Newsweek reports that former NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake met with the infamous leaker in Moscow, saying, "I am fairly confident that he would consider it if formally invited and could do so through safe channels. However, instead of being invited to brief secret committees who have been complicit in NSA's surveillance programs, I think he is much more inclined to proved public testimony on the record."
Susan Phalen, the House Intelligence Committee spokeswoman, confirms that her boss, chairman of the House Mike Rogers would "entertain that request."
Rogers is the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a former FBI special agent and a harsh critic of Edward Snowden, calling him a "traitor" and a "liar" in the past.
However, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has no comment on viewing testimony from Snowden via video, previously calling his leaks "an act of treason."
Newsweek reports that fellow whistleblowers and "allies" of Snowden are somewhat baffled at the lack of eagerness in questioning Snowden.
Although Phalen told Newsweek, "If Snowden is interested in talking with the House intelligence committee, he needs to contact the committee directly or through counsel."
Snowden allies say that's not a problem according to Newsweek, the group claims if Rogers is ready to move past name-calling, Snowden will make himself Skype-available.

Read more: http://www.ryot.org/will-congress-let-sn...z2iocQbL78

The Snowden revelations - although not entirely new - is the story that keeps giving.

Naughty Obama caught lying to Merkel. Oh dearie me.

Quote:

Barack Obama 'approved tapping Angela Merkel's phone 3 years ago'

President Barack Obama was told about monitoring of German Chancellor in 2010 and allowed it to continue, says German newspaper

Mr Obama was told of the secret monitoring of Mrs Merkel by General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, in 2010, according to Bild am Sonntag, a German newspaper. Photo: AFP/GETTY








By Louise Barnett, Berlin and Philip Sherwell, New York

11:28AM GMT 27 Oct 2013
6 Comments


President Barack Obama was personally informed about secret US monitoring of Angela Merkel three years ago, according to latest reports on the eavesdropping affair.

The President allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue spying on the German chancellor, it was claimed.

Mr Obama was told of the secret monitoring of Mrs Merkel by General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, in 2010, according to Bild am Sonntag, a German newspaper.

"Obama did not stop the action at that time but allowed it to continue," a US intelligence source close to the NSA operation told the Sunday newspaper.

The White House later commissioned an extensive NSA dossier about Mrs Merkel, according to Bild.

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The new disclosure came after it was reported that US intelligence operates a global network of 80 electronic listening posts, including 19 in European cities, notably Paris, Berlin, Rome and Madrid, according to Spiegel, the German magazine.
It also claimed that America began monitoring Mrs Merkel as long ago as 2002, three years before she became Chancellor when she was still leader of the opposition.
The latest twists in the US spying scandal come after President Obama reportedly assured Mrs Merkel during a telephone conversation last week that he was unaware the NSA had been spying on her.
In fact, the NSA monitoring of the chancellor included the content of her SMS messages, as well as telephone calls, according to Bild.
Only her secure office landline used for communicating with other heads of state was unaffected.
Information about Mrs Merkel was collated in the US Embassy beside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and sent directly to the White House.
Her predecessor as German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, was also the target of secret US monitoring following his opposition to the Iraq war, Bild says.
The revelations about US spying on Mrs Merkel have sparked outrage across the German political spectrum.
Three quarters of Germans now believe President Obama should issue a personal apology to their leader, according to a poll. Meanwhile, 60 per cent of Germans say the eavesdropping affair strongly or very strongly damages US-German relations.
The spying row prompted leaders meeting at a European Council summit to demand a new deal with Washington on intelligence-gathering.

Meanwhile, Michael Morrell, the former CIA deputy director, told CBS' 60 Minutes programme that the leaks by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, have undermined American efforts to track terrorist threats.
"What Edward Snowden did has put Americans at greater risk because terrorists learn from leaks, and they will be more careful, and we will not get the intelligence we would have gotten otherwise," he said.
Mr Morrell said that Mr Snowden was a traitor to his country. "I think this is the most serious leak - the most serious compromise of classified information in the history of the US intelligence community," he said.

Quote:white house offers tentative support for plans to rein in nsa surveillance

administration says nsa leaks have already prompted changes in intelligence-gathering, including check on un monitoring

• dan roberts and spencer ackerman in washington
  
• theguardian.com, tuesday 29 october 2013 20.00 gmt
  
• jump to comments (412)
  

protesters hold up signs as director of national intelligence james clapper , left, and deputy attorney general james cole prepare to testify at a house intelligence committee hearing. Photograph: Jason reed/reuters

the white house indicated on tuesday that it would support at least some of the congressional efforts to rein in the controversial surveillance practices of the national security agency, as political opinion in washington hardened against the country's embattled intelligence community.
the administration revealed that an internal government review in the wake of revelations by the whistleblower edward snowden had already led to changes in us intelligence-gathering activities thought to be a ban on eavesdropping on the leaders of friendly governments and a curb on surveillance at the united nations.
but wider checks on domestic surveillance practices also looked increasingly likely on tuesday, as bipartisan legislation was introduced in the house of representatives and senate and party leaders united in calling for reform.
even as the white house acknowledged that legislative reform of the nsa was inevitable, senior intelligence officials mounted a uncompromising defence of their current programs. At a congressional hearing, general keith alexander, the director of the nsa, forcefully and emotionally rejected calls to curtail his agency's power. Alexander, who declared he was speaking "from the heart", said the nsa would prefer to "take the beatings" from the public and in the media "than to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked".
at the white house, chief spokesman jay carney welcomed the various reform efforts in principle but declined to discuss specific recommendations until the conclusion of a separate white house investigation.
"in general the president is supportive of the idea that we need to make some reforms," carney said in response to questions about the new legislation. He said that it was important "to increase the confidence that the american people have in these programmes, and to perhaps provide greater oversight and greater transparency as well as more constraints on the authorities that exist".
white house press secretary jay carney speaks at the daily press briefing in the brady press briefing room of the white house in washington, where he took questions on reviewing intelligence gathering of foreign allies. Photograph: Charles dharapak/apcarney also revealed that the white house review would concentrate on whether the us acted appropriately in relation to surveillance activities on its allies. The white house has been under intense pressure in recent days since reports emerged that the nsa had targeted the cellphone of the german chancellor, angela merkel. "the concerns raised by our allies cause us concern too," carney said.
the house speaker john boehner and senate majority leader harry reid also expressed support for reform on tuesday. "the nsa situation is one we need to look at," said reid. "i support the complete review of all of these programs."
on monday night, president barack obama said his administration was conducting a complete review of intelligence activities. Interviewed on television network fusion, obama said: "what we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why i'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing."
senator dianne feinstein, chairwoman of the senate intelligence committee, called for a "total review of all intelligence programs" following the merkel allegations. In a statement on monday, the california democrat said the white house had informed her that "collection on our allies will not continue". Carney would not elaborate on that statement on tuesday.
us senator dianne feinstein arrives for a markup of the senate select committee on intelligence on tuesday. Photograph: Win mcnamee/getty imagesthe near unanimity among political leaders left intelligence leaders striking an increasingly lonely defence of the practices at a hearing on capitol hill.
at a hearing of the house intelligence committee, alexander argued that a continued threat of terrorism justified retaining the agency's post-9/11 powers. At the same hearing, the director of national intelligence james clapper warned the panel to be mindful of the "risks of overcorrection" in surveillance reform suggesting that proposed restrictions on bulk surveillance would leave the country in danger of a terrorist attack.
addressing the growing international row over nsa spying, alexander forcefully argued that reports of the agency collecting millions of europeans' phone calls were "absolutely false".
but clapper danced around the central question of how much obama knew about nsa's separate surveillance activities on foreign leaders. He said that the intelligence agencies "do only what the policymakers, writ large, have actually asked us to do". He added that the "level of detail" about how those requirements are implemented rarely rose to the attention of presidents.
two democratic representatives, adam schiff of california and jan schakowski of illinois, suggested that the house intelligence committee was not informed about the foreign leader spying. Clapper, without confirming that the spying took place, said that "we have by and large complied with the spirit and intent of the law".
a protester against the practices of us security agenices sits in the audience as intelligence officials testify at a hearing on capitol hill. Photograph: Jason reed/reutersschiff drew a heated and unexpected rebuke from rogers, who called his suggestion "disingenuous". The committee has access to "mounds of product" from the nsa, rogers said. Schiff shot back a direct question about whether rogers in fact knew about the foreign leader spying, which rogers said he could not answer without confirming but invited the committee member to view reams of intelligence in private.
there is an increasing sense in washington that congress, and perhaps the white house, will impose some form limitation on the nsa's authorities a rarity since 9/11. Even charles "dutch" ruppersberger, another staunch nsa ally, signalled he was open to transforming the collection of americans' call data.
"can we move away from bulk collection and toward a system like the one used in the criminal prosecution system, in which the government subpoenas individual call data records," ruppersberger told the house committee hearing.

.