Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a staunch defender of the National Security Agency’s data collection programs, appeared Wednesday to confirm that the NSA is gathering information on where Americans are when they use their cellphones – something NSA officials repeatedly have denied in public.
The apparent confirmation, which may have been inadvertent, came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the NSA program. Feinstein, D-Calif., is also a member of that committee.
“I’ve listened to this program being described as a surveillance program. It is not,” Feinstein said. “There is no content collected by the NSA. There are bits of data – location, telephone numbers – that can be queried when there is reasonable and articulable suspicion.”
Feinstein’s office did not respond to a request for clarification. . .