The top U.S. intelligence official addressed the recent revelations about the National Security Agency s covert cell-phone and email data collection surveillance programs on Thursday. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, issued two separate statements on Thursday in response to media reports on the classified order giving the NSA access to all of Verizon’s call metadata. The data collection program is authorized under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Clapper said that it specifically prohibits the NSA from targeting Americans. Clapper said in a separate statement that the broad scope of the data collection is necessary in order to find potential threat intelligence.
Source: https://threatpost.com/dni-clapper-says-nsa-programs-fully-authorized-and-necessary/100910/