Show us a better way than collecting metadata, NSA director says to critics
Critics of the U.S. National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S. residents’ telephone records should offer a better way to track terrorists and protect the country against attacks, the agency’s director said Wednesday.
The NSA’s bulk collection of U.S. telephone records is the “least intrusive” way to track suspected terrorists’ communications with people in the U.S., General Keith Alexander said, defending the NSA’s mass data collection and surveillance programs to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
”If we can come up with a better way, we ought to put it on the table and argue our way through it,” Alexander said. “There is no other way that we know of to connect the dots.” After eight Internet companies, including Apple, Google and Facebook, called for surveillance reforms in a letter this week, Alexander challenged tech companies to offer suggestions for new ways to conduct surveillance.
