Senators: NSA must correct inaccurate claims over privacy protections

Two senators on the intelligence committee accused the National Security Agency of publicly presenting "inaccurate" information about the privacy protections on its surveillance on millions of internet communications. However, in a demonstration of the intense secrecy surrounding NSA surveillance even after Edward Snowden's revelations, the senators claimed they could not publicly identify the allegedly misleading section or sections of a factsheet without compromising classified information.

Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) wrote to General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, to correct "inaccurate" portrayals about restrictions on surveillance published in a factsheet available on the NSA's homepage. The factsheet, concerning NSA's powers under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was also supplied to members of Congress. "We were disappointed to see that this factsheet contains an inaccurate statement about how the section 702 authority has been interpreted by the US government," Sens Wyden and Udall wrote to Alexander.