The Obama administration issued misleading figures about terrorist plots foiled by the National Security Agency’s warrantless mass-collection of records of Americans’ every phone call, NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander admitted to lawmakers Wednesday.
“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, told Gen. Alexander of the 54 cases that administration officials have cited as the fruit of the NSA’s controversial domestic snooping.
“These weren’t all plots, and they weren’t all foiled,” he said.
The Vermont Democrat asked the general to admit that only 13 of the 54 cases had any connection at all to the United States, “Would you agree with that, yes or no?”
“Yes,” replied Gen. Alexander, who is both director of NSA and commander of the U.S. military’s Cyber Command. In response to a follow-up question, Mr. Alexander also acknowledged that only one or two of the cases cited by senior officials at previous hearings had actually been foiled by the NSA’s vast database.
“The American people are getting left with an inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs,” Mr. Leahy said. . .