Foreign journalists’ claims that the National Security Agency collected tens of millions of phone conversations of their respective nations’ citizens are “completely false,” said Army Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA director. “They cite as evidence screen shots of the results of a Web tool used for data management purposes, but both they and the person who stole the classified data did not understand what they were looking at,” Alexander told the House Select Intelligence Committee on Oct. 29. Alexander was commenting on the outrage in countries including France, Italy, and Spain after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks of classified US intelligence information showed the extent of US eavesdropping activities. Alexander asserted that NSA “legally collected” this information. “To be perfectly clear, this is not information that we collected on European citizens. It represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations,” he said. (Clapper-Alexander-Cole joint statement) (For more hearing coverage, see Clapper Defends Surveillance Activities and Everyone is Doing It.)
NASA Boss: Race to Moon Has National Security Stakes
Sept. 15, 2026
NASA is pushing hard to get astronauts back to the moon by 2028—and the urgency is driven in no small part by the national security implications of doing so before China does, Administrator Jared Isaacman said Sept. 15.
