"In addition to that, he runs basically his own military. It's the U.S. Cyber Command, which was just placed under his authority. The U.S. Cyber Command is an extremely powerful organization that's already launched aggressive, what they call "kinetic attacks.' Kinetic attacks means destructive attacks using cyber to actually destroy things. And they destroyed the centrifuges in the Iranian nuclear development plant using cyber. So, as is--as being commander of U.S. Cyber Command, he's also got three branches of the military under him. He's got the 2nd Army, the 24th Air Force and the 10th Navy Fleet. So you've got an enormously powerful person who's enormously secret and who can do things without even members of Congress knowing about it."
The first NSA head to appear at a hacker convention, Defcon 2012, Gen. Alexander was asked something about the NSA keeping files on every U.S. citizen. He replied with a variation on the standard meme:
"No, we don't. Absolutely not. And anybody who would tell you that we're keeping files or dossiers on the American people know that's not true".
And I will tell you
that those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds
of millions of dossiers on people is absolutely false."
Also in 2012, Gen. Alexander told Fox News that the NSA does not "hold data on U.S. citizens," which is clearly false. In May 2013 he told Reuters, "The great irony is we're the only ones not spying on the American people." On June 12, Gen. Alexander admitted to the Senate Appropriation Committee that "we create a set of data" about American citizens, but promised that the NSA didn't look at it except under very special circumstances that are secret. "Then, given that, we can now look [at your phone records] and say, "Who was this guy talking to in the United States and why?' " the general explained.
Whatever the NSA
Wants to Collect, It Collects and Hoards
Like a virtual hoarder, the NSA collects data compulsively, and when it runs out of space, it builds more space. The NSA has not only been amassing data on pretty much everyone who uses the internet or a mobile device, its building a one million square foot data storage facility for $2 billion in Bluffdale, Utah. According to 40-year NSA veteran William Binney, that facility will have the capacity to hold 100 years or more worth of data on everyone, in a searchable database.
Maintaining the useful confusion of the basic meme, the President told Charlie Rose on June 17:
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