| Wall Street Journal | - |
Spy
agencies now rank cybersecurity and leaks ahead of terrorism in an
annual assessment of top U.S. threats, reflecting changes in the
security landscape following the disclosures by former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Politics and Policy
Snowden Leaks Assailed in Senate Hearing on National Security
Updated Jan. 29, 2014 7:50 p.m. ET
Spy agencies now rank cybersecurity and leaks ahead of
terrorism in an annual assessment of top U.S. threats, reflecting
changes in the security landscape following the disclosures by former
National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Siobhan Gorman
reports on the News Hub. Photo: AP.
WASHINGTON—The top U.S. intelligence official lashed out Wednesday at former National Security Agency contractor
Edward Snowden,
telling U.S. senators that Mr. Snowden's leaks of surveillance
documents have made the nation "less safe" and calling for the return of
the stolen information.
But the attack
was countered by Sen.
Ron Wyden
(D., Ore.), who said that "years of misleading and deceptive
statements" about U.S. surveillance programs by senior officials had
undermined the trust of the American public.
U.S. spy services have an engrained
"culture of misinformation," Mr. Wyden added in an unusually sharp
denunciation of surveillance practices that have stoked controversy in
recent months.
The often testy exchanges
between senators and officials, which came during a hearing to gauge
threats to national security, point to the difficult path ahead as
Congress prepares to tackle the unfinished business of surveillance
reforms.
President
Barack Obama
unveiled several measures to curb surveillance activities in a
speech earlier this month, but left many of the details to be determined
by intelligence officials and Congress, such as how to restructure an
NSA phone-data program that collects call records on millions of
Americans.
Director of National
Intelligence
James Clapper
devoted just a quarter of his opening testimony to global threats
like Syria and cyberattacks. He spent much of the rest detailing the
harms done by Mr. Snowden's disclosures, from risking the lives of
people working with U.S. spy services to undermining
multi-billion-dollar spy efforts. Terrorists, he said, are "going to
school" on the information Mr. Snowden has revealed. The leaks, he said,
are the "most damaging theft of intelligence information in our
history."
A threat-assessment report
compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies and released for the hearing also
reflected the controversy around Mr. Snowden. The report said dangers
from foreign spies and from leakers have surpassed terrorism as threats
to the U.S.
Cybersecurity threats
topped the list for the second straight year. But this year's discussion
of such threats was more ominous, reflecting what officials see as a
growing likelihood of a destructive attack.
"The
unauthorized disclosure of this information to state adversaries,
nonstate activists, or other entities will continue to pose a critical
threat," the assessment report stated.
Fueling
cybersecurity concerns are efforts by countries like Russia and China
to divide the Internet along national borders. The U.S. sees this as a
threat to the free flow of information. Current and former officials
have warned that the Snowden leaks have given momentum to this trend, as
countries try to counter what they see as a threat from the NSA.
The
hearing served as a kind of return showdown between Messrs. Clapper and
Wyden. At last year's threat hearing, Mr. Wyden asked whether the NSA
collects "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of
Americans." Mr. Clapper replied, "No, sir."
That
answer was disproven a few months later when Mr. Snowden revealed the
NSA phone program that collects millions of U.S. call records. Mr.
Clapper later explained that he responded in the "least untruthful
manner" possible, given restrictions on classified information.
Aides clarified to say that he was thinking about other surveillance programs, not the phone data program, when he answered.
Sen.
Wyden refrained Wednesday from directly citing Mr. Clapper's 2013
comments. Instead, he cited statements by NSA's director that "the NSA
doesn't hold data on U.S. citizens," adding, "this is obviously untrue."
NSA had no comment in response.
Mr.
Wyden also criticized NSA's handling of email, saying that while
officials have suggested the agency lacks authority to read emails
without a warrant, secret court opinions "showed that wasn't true,
either."
Sen. Wyden pressed Mr. Clapper
and other top officials to set deadlines for delivering answers to
questions such as whether any American communications had been searched
without a warrant. This time, Mr. Clapper didn't provide an answer, but
said he'd prefer to discuss the topic at another time.
Central Intelligence Agency Director
John Brennan
also came under criticism from lawmakers for his agency's
rebuttal of a highly critical, still classified report from the Senate
intelligence committee on the agency's interrogation program.
Sen.
Martin Heinrich
(D., N.M.) said the CIA under Mr. Brennan made "inaccurate public
statements about the committee's study [that] are meant to intimidate,
deflect and thwart legitimate oversight."
Mr.
Brennan shot back: "I respectfully but vehemently disagree with your
characterization of the CIA's cooperation with this committee." He said
he would discuss the report with the committee, though not at the
hearing about global threats.
Intelligence
officials also weighed in on the dangers posed by the civil war in
Syria, saying it has become a training ground for roughly 26,000
extremists, about 7,000 of them foreigners from the Middle East and
Europe. That is fueling concerns those militants could launch attacks in
the West.
Worries about terrorist attacks during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, were also on the agenda.
Matthew Olsen,
director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said there has been "uptick in the threat reporting regarding Sochi."
The
increase was expected," he said, adding that he is not as concerned
about attacks at the Olympics as much as ones just outside the Games or
elsewhere in the region.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com
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