McCain suggests spy inquiry panel
Sen. John McCain said Monday that Congress should consider creating a special select committee dedicated to examining U.S. eavesdropping on foreign governments under the Obama administration as part of an overall review of counterterrorism surveillance activities.
“Obviously, we’re going to want to know exactly what the president mation. “This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community.”
Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said Monday that Obama has ordered a review of surveillance capabilities, including those affecting America’s closest foreign partners and allies, to ensure that “as we gather intelligence, we are properly accounting for both the security of our citizens and our allies, and knewandwhenheknewit,” McCain told reporters after appearing with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at the City Club of Chicago.
McCain, R-Ariz., was responding to reports that the National Security Agency listened in on calls of nearly three dozen foreign leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. the privacy concerns shared by Americans and citizens around the world.”
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review is supposed to be completed this year.
Citing documents from Snowden, the Germannews magazine Der Spiegel reported last week that the NSA had monitored Merkel’s cellphone since 2002. Obama subsequently called Merkel and told her he was
“We have always eavesdropped on people around the world. But the advance of technology has given us enormous capabilities, and I think you might make an argument that some of this capability has been very offensive both to us and to our allies,” McCain said. not aware her phone had been hacked, U.S. officials said.
Intelligence officials also disputed a Wall Street Journal story Monday that said that the White House only learned this summer, during a review of surveillance operations that might be exposed by Snowden, about an NSAprogram to monitor communications of 35 world leaders.
Since then, officials said, several of the eavesdrop- ping operations have been stopped due to political sensitivities.
If U.S. spying on key foreign leaders was news to the White House, current and former officials said, then White House officials have not been reading their briefing books.