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.)
The Pentagon has concluded a new agreement to buy laser-guidance kits that turn rockets into drone-killing weapons. BAE Systems and the Defense Department announced a framework deal of up to seven years for 25,000 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System guidance kits annually for the U.S. military.