NSA Official: Phone-Snooping Foiled a Lone Plot

Skeptical senators from both parties yesterday quizzed top intelligence officials about the NSA's sweeping domestic call surveillance at a testy Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Ahead of the hearing, the Obama administration declassified and released documents outlining the rules for accessing information from the surveillance program and listing multiple violations of those rules, reports the Wall Street Journal. Key parts of the files including terms used to search phone data were blacked out, the BBC notes.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's chairman, accused the administration of exaggerating the program's success. "If this program is not effective, it has to end. So far, I’m not convinced by what I’ve seen," he said, noting that information provided to Congress didn't back up the administration's claim that the program foiled 54 terrorist plots, the Washington Post reports. Under questioning from Leahy, Deputy NSA Director John Inglis admitted that the phone-snooping had "made a contribution" in foiling 12 domestic plots, but had been the critical factor in just one. As the hearing was in progress, Edward Snowden released information on another far-reaching NSA surveillance program. (More National Security Agency stories.)