Mission closures sharpen debate on US snooping

THE United States’ unprecedented decision to close two dozen diplomatic missions in the Middle East and Africa has intensified the debate on its spy agencies’ vast Internet surveillance program.
The embassies and missions were shut down until the end of Ramadan after what the State Department said were credible intelligence reports that Al-Qaeda is preparing a major attack on US interests.
Defenders of the National Security Agency’s digital dragnet seized upon this as evidence that the controversial web surveillance is both effective and necessary to protect American lives.
But opponents of the programs, which were revealed in June by rogue intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in a leak of classified documents, expressed skepticism at the value of the vague warnings. “It’s a very credible threat, and it’s based on intelligence,” said Dutch Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee.
“The good news is that we’ve picked up intelligence. That’s what NSA does. NSA’s sole purpose is to get information and intelligence to protect Americans from attack,” he said.
If the latest dire warnings do prove justified — or even if a week goes by without violent incident — defenders of the NSA will say the ongoing threat from Middle East extremists justifies the surveillance. But some of those who have expressed concerns about the programs, which have scooped up web traffic and telephone metadata from millions of Americans as well as from foreign targets, were unconvinced.
“You have to be very careful about how much you represent that any particular program has contributed to our security,” said Democratic lawmaker Adam Schiff. “If you look at the one that’s most at issue here, and that’s the bulk metadata program, there’s no indication — unless I’m proved wrong later that that program — which collects vast amounts of domestic data, domestic telephony data, contributed to information about this particular plot.”
Lawmakers were reacting after Vice President Joe Biden gave them a classified briefing on the threats, and after NSA number two John Inglis claimed the controversial programs had thwarted 54 planned attacks. “It is scary. Al-Qaeda is on the rise in this part of the world and the NSA program is proving its worth yet again,” insisted Republican hawk Senator Lindsey Graham.
But the vague nature of the apparent threat —despite claiming to have precise intelligence, the State Department has closed dozens of disparate installations — has led many to question its worth.

• Agence France Presse