NSA executives objected to programme before Edward Snowden’s disclosures
Some executives argued in 2009 that the surveillance programme exceeded the agency’s mandate to focus on foreign spying and would do little to stop terror plots.
Years before Edward Snowden sparked a public outcry with the disclosure that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) had been secretly collecting American telephone records, some NSA executives voiced strong objections about the programme, current and former intelligence officials say.
The programme exceeded the agency’s mandate to focus on foreign spying and would do little to stop terror plots, the executives argued.
Snowden, a former NSA computer analyst, leaked tens of thousands of classified intelligence documents to the media last year.
The revelations sparked a firestorm over the NSA’s gathering of data from the internet activities and phones of millions of ordinary Americans and dozens of world leaders.
The 2009 dissent, led by a senior NSA official and embraced by others at the agency, prompted the administration of US President Barack Obama to consider – but ultimately abandon – a plan to stop gathering the records.
The secret internal debate has not been previously reported. The Senate on Tuesday rejected an administration proposal that would have curbed the programme and left the records in the hands of telephone companies rather than the government. That would be an arrangement similar to the one the administration quietly rejected in 2009.