National
Security Agency surveillance programs came under more scrutiny Tuesday
as the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit and a prominent
senator and Internet giant Google called on the Obama administration to
disclose more information.
In its lawsuit, the ACLU said an NSA program that harvests phone calls violates the rights of all Americans.
"The
program goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot
Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association
and the right to privacy," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director.
Meanwhile,
Google sought permission to disclose more details about another
contested NSA program, one that allows the government to collect online information from non-U.S. citizens.
And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters she has asked Gen.
Keith Alexander — the head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command — to
declassify more information about its phone and Internet surveillance
programs.
The goal is "so that we can talk about them, because I think they're really helpful," she said.
The Guardian and Washington Post disclosed these programs last week, based on leaks from a former NSA contract employee.
Edward Snowden, who is under investigation by the Justice Department for disclosure of classified information, fled to Hong Kong before announcing Sunday he was the source of the leaks. The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton issued a statement Tuesday confirming that Snowden had been fired from his $122,000-a-year job "for violations of the firm's code of ethics and firm policy."
President
Obama and aides have defended the NSA phone and Internet intercept
programs, saying they have helped prevent terrorist attacks and are
subject to oversight by Congress and a special (and secret) court.
"They
make a difference in our capacity to anticipate and prevent possible
terrorist activity," Obama said, also citing "strict supervision by all
three branches of government."
"They do
not involve listening to people's phone calls, do not involve reading
the e-mails of U.S. citizens or U.S. residents absent further action by a
federal court that is entirely consistent with what we would do, for
example, in a criminal investigation," Obama said.
In
its lawsuit — which deals just with the phone call program — the ACLU
said that the NSA collection system violates rights of free speech and
privacy. The ACLU noted it is a customer of Verizon Business Network Services, the recipient of a secret court order published by The Guardian
last week. The order requires Verizon to turn over all phone call
details, including who places them, who receives them and when and where
they are made.
"The crux of the government's justification
for the program is the chilling logic that it can collect everyone's
data now and ask questions later," said Alex Abdo, a staff attorney for
the ACLU's National Security Project.
Google,
meanwhile, says it has been an unwitting participant in the NSA Internet
program known as PRISM. The company said it had never heard of PRISM
until last week.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric
Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Google said it can prove it
does not hand the government data on a broad scale if it is allowed to
publicly discuss requests made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
"Google's
numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests
falls far short of the claims being made," wrote David Drummond,
Google's chief legal officer. "Google has nothing to hide."
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