NSA chief says NATO allies shared phone records with the U.S. spy agency
Source: Washington Post
NSA chief says NATO allies shared phone records with the U.S. spy agency
By Ellen Nakashima and Karen DeYoung, Updated: Tuesday, October 29, 8:54 PM
The director of the National Security Agency on Tuesday dismissed as completely false reports that his agency swept up millions of phone records of European citizens, and he revealed that data collected by NATO allies were shared with the United States.
Gen. Keith Alexander said foreign intelligence services collected phone records in war zones and other areas outside their borders and provided them to the spy agency an operation that was misunderstood by French and Spanish newspapers that reported that the NSA was conducting surveillance in their countries.
This is not information that we collected on European citizens, Alexander told the House Intelligence Committee. It represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations.
Alexander made the comments in response to questions from the panels chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), about reports that the NSA collected more than 70 million French phone records in a one-month period late last year and early this year and intercepted more than 60 million phone calls in Spain during the same time frame.
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