The senior lawmaker in charge of overseeing US intelligence services has denounced American efforts to monitor phone calls and emails of allied foreign leaders and called for a “total review” of US intelligence programmes.
Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, said on Monday that she and her committee had been kept in the dark for more than a decade about some of the activities of the US intelligence community and that presidential approval should be required for its most sensitive operations.
Coming from one of the biggest defenders of the intelligence services in Congress, Ms Feinstein’s comments represent a stark rebuke of the National Security Agency, which has been accused of overreaching by conducting extensive electronic surveillance on foreign leaders.