WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government's sweeping surveillance programs have disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots in the United States and abroad, including a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, senior government officials testified Tuesday.
The officials, appearing before a largely friendly House committee, defended the collection of telephone and Internet data by the National Security Agency as central to protecting the United States and its allies against terrorist attacks. And they said that recent disclosures about the surveillance operations have caused serious damage.
"We are now faced with a situation that, because this information has been made public, we run the risk of losing these collection capabilities," said Robert Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "We're not going to know for many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there is no doubt that they will cause our national security to be affected."
The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee was the third congressional session examining the leaks of classified material about two top-secret surveillance programs by Edward Snowden, 29, a former NSA contractor and onetime CIA employee.
Articles based on the material in The Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper have raised concerns about intrusions on civil liberties and forced the Obama administration to mount an aggressive defense of the effectiveness and privacy protections of the operations.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, told the committee that the programs had helped prevent "potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11." He said at least 10 of the disrupted plots involved terrorism suspects or targets in the United States.
Gen. Alexander said officials do not plan to release additional information publicly, to avoid revealing sources of methods of operation, but he said the House and Senate intelligence committees will receive classified details of the thwarted plots.
In testimony last week, Gen. Alexander said the surveillance programs had helped prevent an attack on the subway system in New York City and the bombing of a Danish newspaper. Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, described two additional plots Tuesday that he said were stopped through the surveillance -- a plan by a Kansas City, Mo., man to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and efforts by a San Diego man to send money to terrorists in Somalia.
The officials said repeatedly that the operations were authorized by Congress and subject to oversight through internal mechanisms and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Gen. Alexander said that more than 90 percent of the information on the foiled plots came from a program targeting the communications of foreigners, known as PRISM. The program was authorized under Section 702 of a 2008 law that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
The law authorizes the NSA to collect e-mails and other Internet communications to and from foreign targets overseas who are thought to be involved in terrorism or nuclear proliferation or who might provide critical foreign intelligence. No American in the country or abroad can be targeted without a warrant, and no person inside the United States can be targeted without a warrant.
A second program collects all call records from U.S. phone companies. It is authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The records do not include the content of calls, location data, or a subscriber's name or address. That law, passed in 2001 and renewed twice since then, also amended FISA.
Mr. Snowden, a high school dropout who worked at an NSA operations center in Hawaii for 15 months as a contractor, released highly classified information on both programs, claiming they represent government overreach. He has been in hiding since publicly acknowledging on June 9 that he leaked the material.
Several lawmakers pressed for answers on how Mr. Snowden, a low-level systems administrator, could have had access to highly classified material such as a court order for phone records.
Also on Tuesday, Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government.
The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping NSA surveillance of Internet traffic.
Google, one of nine companies named in NSA documents as providing information to the top-secret PRISM program, has demanded that U.S. officials give it more leeway to describe the company's relationship with the government.
Google and the other companies involved have sought to reassure users that their privacy is being protected from unwarranted intrusions.
In the petition, Google is seeking permission to publish the total numbers of requests the court makes of the company and the numbers of user accounts they affect. The company long has made regular reports with regard to other data demands from the U.S. government and from other governments worldwide.
All of the technology companies involved in PRISM, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, have struggled to respond to the revelations about NSA surveillance. Most have issued carefully word denials, saying that they do not permit wholesale data collection while acknowledging that they comply with legal government information requests.
On Tuesday, Gen. Alexander and the other witnesses focused heavily on justifying the programs and arguing that they operate under legal guidelines.
The officials, appearing before a largely friendly House committee, defended the collection of telephone and Internet data by the National Security Agency as central to protecting the United States and its allies against terrorist attacks. And they said that recent disclosures about the surveillance operations have caused serious damage.
"We are now faced with a situation that, because this information has been made public, we run the risk of losing these collection capabilities," said Robert Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "We're not going to know for many months whether these leaks in fact have caused us to lose these capabilities, but if they do have that effect, there is no doubt that they will cause our national security to be affected."
The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee was the third congressional session examining the leaks of classified material about two top-secret surveillance programs by Edward Snowden, 29, a former NSA contractor and onetime CIA employee.
Articles based on the material in The Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper have raised concerns about intrusions on civil liberties and forced the Obama administration to mount an aggressive defense of the effectiveness and privacy protections of the operations.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, told the committee that the programs had helped prevent "potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11." He said at least 10 of the disrupted plots involved terrorism suspects or targets in the United States.
Gen. Alexander said officials do not plan to release additional information publicly, to avoid revealing sources of methods of operation, but he said the House and Senate intelligence committees will receive classified details of the thwarted plots.
In testimony last week, Gen. Alexander said the surveillance programs had helped prevent an attack on the subway system in New York City and the bombing of a Danish newspaper. Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, described two additional plots Tuesday that he said were stopped through the surveillance -- a plan by a Kansas City, Mo., man to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and efforts by a San Diego man to send money to terrorists in Somalia.
The officials said repeatedly that the operations were authorized by Congress and subject to oversight through internal mechanisms and the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Gen. Alexander said that more than 90 percent of the information on the foiled plots came from a program targeting the communications of foreigners, known as PRISM. The program was authorized under Section 702 of a 2008 law that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
The law authorizes the NSA to collect e-mails and other Internet communications to and from foreign targets overseas who are thought to be involved in terrorism or nuclear proliferation or who might provide critical foreign intelligence. No American in the country or abroad can be targeted without a warrant, and no person inside the United States can be targeted without a warrant.
A second program collects all call records from U.S. phone companies. It is authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The records do not include the content of calls, location data, or a subscriber's name or address. That law, passed in 2001 and renewed twice since then, also amended FISA.
Mr. Snowden, a high school dropout who worked at an NSA operations center in Hawaii for 15 months as a contractor, released highly classified information on both programs, claiming they represent government overreach. He has been in hiding since publicly acknowledging on June 9 that he leaked the material.
Several lawmakers pressed for answers on how Mr. Snowden, a low-level systems administrator, could have had access to highly classified material such as a court order for phone records.
Also on Tuesday, Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government.
The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping NSA surveillance of Internet traffic.
Google, one of nine companies named in NSA documents as providing information to the top-secret PRISM program, has demanded that U.S. officials give it more leeway to describe the company's relationship with the government.
Google and the other companies involved have sought to reassure users that their privacy is being protected from unwarranted intrusions.
In the petition, Google is seeking permission to publish the total numbers of requests the court makes of the company and the numbers of user accounts they affect. The company long has made regular reports with regard to other data demands from the U.S. government and from other governments worldwide.
All of the technology companies involved in PRISM, including Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, have struggled to respond to the revelations about NSA surveillance. Most have issued carefully word denials, saying that they do not permit wholesale data collection while acknowledging that they comply with legal government information requests.
On Tuesday, Gen. Alexander and the other witnesses focused heavily on justifying the programs and arguing that they operate under legal guidelines.