--- title: NSA Leaks: James Clapper Acknowledges Snooping to Ron Wyden description: The country’s top intelligence official said his agency is still searching through Americans emails and phone records in letter to senator last month. canonical: https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/ author: David Stout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-02T04:37:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:05:10.721Z article:section: Politics og:title: NSA Leaks: James Clapper Acknowledges Snooping to Ron Wyden og:description: The country’s top intelligence official said his agency is still searching through Americans emails and phone records in letter to senator last month. og:url: https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbabe28c86e0a002/6986886e13c79fdd311915e1/clapper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: US National Intelligence director Clapper appears before House Intelligence Committee in Washington og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NSA Leaks: James Clapper Acknowledges Snooping to Ron Wyden twitter:description: The country’s top intelligence official said his agency is still searching through Americans emails and phone records in letter to senator last month. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbabe28c86e0a002/6986886e13c79fdd311915e1/clapper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Intel Chief Admits Continued Snooping on Americans > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Apr 2, 2014 4:37 AM UTC  Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper appears before the House Intelligence Committee on "Worldwide Threats" in Washington February 4, 2014. Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper appears before the House Intelligence Committee on "Worldwide Threats" in Washington February 4, 2014. Gary Cameron - Reuters by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout Apr 2, 2014 4:37 AM UTC Authorities continue to comb through Americans’ phone and email records without warrants, the nation’s top intelligence official [acknowledged](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/us/politics/letter-puts-focus-on-us-searches-for-americans-emails-and-calls.html?hp) recently. In a [letter](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1100298-unclassified-702-response.html) from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, written on March 28 but disclosed Tuesday, Clapper said authorities have the legal right to conduct such monitoring under federal law. “As you know, when Congress reauthorized Section 702, the proposal to restrict such queries was specifically raised and ultimately not adopted,” Clapper wrote, referring to a provision in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows intelligence officials to monitor Americans in some cases if it’s in pursuit of foreign targets. Wyden, who has been a fierce critic of the government’s domestic surveillance tactics and has been increasingly vocal in the wake of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, panned Clapper’s reliance on what he called “loopholes” in the law. “Today’s admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans,” Wyden and fellow Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) said in [a joint statement](http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-udall-on-revelations-that-intelligence-agencies-have-exploited-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act-loophole) Tuesday. Amendments to the FISA law enacted in 2008 effectively legalized the warrantless surveillance program the Bush administration installed following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/"},"headline":"Intel Chief Admits Continued Snooping on Americans","datePublished":"2014-04-02T04:37:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:05:10.721Z","description":"National Intelligence Director James Clapper admits that intelligence agencies are still searching through Americans' emails and phone records without warrants, but tells a top lawmaker that such practices are allowed under federal law","url":"https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/","keywords":["Domestic Surveillance","9/11","fisa","National Security"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbabe28c86e0a002/6986886e13c79fdd311915e1/clapper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Stout","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-stout/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbbabe28c86e0a002/6986886e13c79fdd311915e1/clapper.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US National Intelligence director Clapper appears before House Intelligence Committee in Washington","caption":"US National Intelligence director Clapper appears before House Intelligence Committee in Washington","creditText":"Gary Cameron - Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/domestic-surveillance/","name":"Domestic Surveillance"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/46341/intel-chief-admits-continued-snooping-on-americans/","name":"Intel Chief Admits Continued Snooping on Americans"}}]}] ```