U.S. Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and commander of U.S. Cyber Command.
The director of the US National Security Agency, Keith Alexander, has defended Washington’s spying activities across the globe, saying such activities are the best way to defend the US against potential threats.
“There is no other way to connect the dots,” Alexander told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, as he asked US lawmakers not to abolish the NSA�™s mass collection programs.
Almost six months after disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed how the US agency is spying on both Americans and other people around the world, the commander of the US Cyber Command says the spying programs cannot be scrapped.
“We cannot go back to a pre-9/11 moment,” he said in defense of his agency�™s spying on people around the world.
Alexander also claimed that threats to US national security have been mounting in recent months.
Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate panel, who have hosted a number of hearings on the matter, raised questions on the recent revelation that billions of cell phone records are being stored and mapped on a daily basis around the world.
“Because we can do something, it doesn’t really make sense to do it,” Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said, adding that aspects of the bulk collection programs are “beyond extraordinary in the US.”
Iowa Senator Charles 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.”
The White House has been under pressure since Snowden disclosed the details of the program earlier this year.
The NSA spying scandal broke in early June when The Guardian reported that the super spy agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Since then, various documents revealed by Snowden have suggested that the agency is also spying on foreign nationals living in the United States as well as many ordinary people and political leaders throughout the world.
AN/ISH
Source: Press TV