In the United States, politicians have completely quarreled with intelligence officers over the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA), about which Edward Snowden, who once carried out NSA orders, continues to supply more and more new information.

General Keith Alexander is frustrated by the ingratitude of the US government
Photo: AP

Hearings have begun in the US Congress on the legality of the methods that the NSA used to collect data. Even Dianne Feinstein, a fierce defender of intelligence agencies and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee (the body that exercises political control over the intelligence community), has demanded a fundamental overhaul of the work of all US intelligence agencies. Administration officials said President Obama was not at all aware of the surveillance practices.

Naturally, the leadership of the NSA and other US intelligence services did not like the fact that, in order to save the president’s reputation, administration officials were ready to present the NSA as a completely uncontrollable institution in which God knows what was going on. Speaking to Congress on Wednesday, the head of the US intelligence community, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper Jr., noted that President Obama had a general idea of what was happening. He was also supported by the head of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, who insisted that his agency is by no means an uncontrolled rogue institution that only collects information about its allies and its own citizens.

The Snowden case lives on