Director of US National Intelligence James Clapper has defended the electronic surveillance tool PRISM, which collects data from phone calls and Internet accounts of Americans.
On Saturday, he insisted that various intelligence-gathering programs being used by the US government are legal, and defended the US governmentâ„¢s reticence about them.
Å“Our ability to discuss these activities is limited by our need to protect intelligence sources and methods,” Clapper said.
Å“Disclosing information about the specific methods the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a Ëœplaybookâ„¢ of how to avoid detection,” he pointed out.
Clapper also said the surveillance programs are both longstanding and well-known to the Congress.
He further noted that the Congress is briefed twice a year about the surveillance activities approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
The Guardian revealed on June 6 that a top secret US court order allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect data on millions of Americans who are customers of the major US phone company, Verizon.
According to the order, Verizon should Å“on a daily basis” give the NSA data, including phone numbers, location, and duration of all phone calls in its systems, both in the US and between the US and other countries.
On the same day, the Washington Post also reported that the NSA had direct access to Internet servers, saying their source, a career intelligence officer, was horrified of the capabilities of the systems used by the top US spy agency.
Internet giants like Apple and Facebook, however, have denied claims that they opened their doors to US spy agencies.
The new revelation comes as the administration of US President Barack Obama has already come under fire for secretly obtaining the phone records of the Associated Press journalists as well as the emails and phone records of a Fox News Channel reporter.
MP/HJL/HMV
This article originally appeared on: Press TV