The US National Security Agency can keep copies of intercepted communications from or about US citizens if the material contains significant intelligence or evidence of crimes, according to top-secret documents published on Thursday by The Guardian newspaper.
The new details are the latest leaked by a 29-year-old former NSA contractor who fled to Hong Kong and has been divulging previously secret programs for collecting US phone records and Internet data.
President Barack Obama and other top officials have defended the programmes, which again have raised the debate over national security and individual privacy.
Attention turned on Thursday to the security clearance background check conducted on Edward Snowden, and a government watchdog testified there may have been problems with it.
USIS, the company that conducted the security clearance investigation of the former NSA systems analyst, is now under investigation itself, Patrick McFarland, the US Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general, told a Senate hearing. He declined to say what triggered the inquiry, but when asked if there were concerns about Snowden’s background check, McFarland answered: “Yes, we do believe that there may be some problems.”
USIS said in a statement that it has never been informed that it is under criminal investigation, and it declined to comment on whether it conducted a background investigation of Snowden.