The Obama administration’s electronic surveillance came under fresh criticism on Wednesday from senior Democratic and Republican senators, as scepticism about the National Security Agency’s collection of phone logs spread on Capitol Hill.
The administration tried to defuse some of the criticism by releasing previously classified documents about its spying programmes. But the move came as it faced new disclosures about its collection of internet data.
The Guardian on Wednesday published a 32-page presentation about an NSA programme called XKeyscore, which details the agency’s “widest reaching” means of gathering data from the internet. The document says NSA analysts are able to analyse internet activity from servers all over the world, including browsing histories, searches and online chats.