NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander will testify today at a previously scheduled Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on enduring cybersecurity threats. He is expected to face questions during the hearing concerning the recent leaks of details into the NSA’s phone surveillance activities.
You can follow livestream video coverage beginning at 2pm EST; follow this post for updates. [UPDATE: The feed has been removed, as the hearing has ended.]
Highlights from the hearing below:
There were other very interesting exchanges between several Senators and Gen. Alexander, most notably with Senators Durbin, Collins and Merkley. You can listen to those audio clips at NPR.
Here’s what people were saying on Twitter…
NSA chief says U.S. infrastructure highly vulnerable to cyber attack http://t.co/fif6JFKn8Q
— Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) June 12, 2013
Mikulski to colleagues: Ask NSA chief about domestic surveillance ‘another day’: Joel Gehrke
Senate Appropriat… http://t.co/mJwpcG2yWC— Beltway Confidential (@BeltwayConfid) June 12, 2013
Sen Mikulski: Senate approps hearings on NSA leaks are being planned. "that is not today, that is for another day." http://t.co/MZuvFPOMmJ
— Carlo Muñoz (@NatSecCarlo) June 12, 2013
Senate approps cyber hearing will go into closed/classified session this afternoon in CVC, once open hearing concludes, sez Sen Mikulski
— Carlo Muñoz (@NatSecCarlo) June 12, 2013
FINALLY Senator Patrick Leahy #NSA
— Eli Lake (@EliLake) June 12, 2013
Senator Leahy quizzing NSA boss about using section 215 of the Patriot Act. Asking if it's ever been needed to stop terror attacks.
— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick) June 12, 2013
U.S. surveillance has stopped "dozens" of potential terrorist events: NSA Chief live remarks to Senate http://t.co/jqlGqpAJFH #breaking
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 12, 2013
Sen Dick Durbin grilling NSA director on how someone w/Edward Snowden's limited education & resume could've been allowed to get close to NSA
— Mandy Nagy (@Liberty_Chick) June 12, 2013
Alexander tells Durbin he is troubled that Snowden had such widespread access but points out IT skills are hot commodity for NSA work.
— Rebecca Cooper Dupin (@RCooperDC) June 12, 2013
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Comments
This is not the same hearing broadcast from CSpan. What’s going on?
Never mind. There’s a time lapse of several minutes. I will stick with this livestream. It’s much clearer with no nonstop buffering.
This hearing is a waste of time.
I would have a couple questions for the General.
1. Exactly how much data are they gathering? (whether they examine it or not)
2. What’s to stop them from illegally gathering/examining data?
3. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
From what I’ve seen so far, the general is handling himself pretty well considering that he’s doing the job that was handed to him.
Personally, I don’t think that much of what the NSA does should be in the public limelight. We need every tool available to squelch a growing threat from those who favor seventh century lifestyles…
Possible connection to this scandal, or that one, or to the one over there:
Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell has just resigned (his name was on the Benghazi talking points editing thing).
http://rightreactions.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-director.html
“How could a high school dropout get a 200k job managing our networks?”, the real question is “How could a distinguished senator support an agency that actively subverts the constitution”
… what I wonder is if Snowden played this “light” … revealing the least damaging stuff first …
… there is supposedly more stuff to leak. It looks more and more that Snowden leaked the light-duty stuff to get everybody’s attention, and now, NSA has to fess up to Congresscritters and Senators about the entire scope of their projects, including the stuff he never leaked.
Snowden may have learned something in the way Breitbart & O’Keefe artfully withheld ACORN videos until the opposition stated its defenses, thereby blowing away those defenses (after the first ACORN video, defenders said, “aw, it’s just a local rogue office,” and then *boom* out came videos from across the country).