By Katherine Shrader, Associated Press
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell pulled the curtain back on previously classified details of government surveillance and of a secretive court whose recent rulings created new hurdles for the Bush administration as it tries to prevent terrorism.
McConnell’s comments – made in an interview with the El Paso (Texas) Times last week and posted as a transcript on the newspaper’s Web site Wednesday – raised eyebrows for their frank discussion of previously classified eavesdropping work conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.
…Even as he shed new light on the classified operations, McConnell asserted that the current debate in Congress about whether to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will cost American lives because of all the information it revealed to terrorists.
“Part of this is a classified world. The fact that we’re doing it this way means that some Americans are going to die,” he said.
(Original Article)