Speaking during a meeting at an independent political think tank in New York, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said he was worried about a growing number of attempts to break into U.S. restricted computer networks, reportedly performed by Russian intelligence organizations.
He said Russia's spying had been "extremely aggressive" when it came to attempts to hack into computers at defense companies and financial institutions.
McConnell, who succeeded John Negroponte as U.S. Director of National Intelligence in February, circulated in April proposed amendments to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to respond to its perceived inflexibility and inability to counter the threat of terrorism.
According to media reports, McConnell proposed:
- monitoring foreign nationals without approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC);
- revising the standards of proof required for intelligence organizations to obtain phone call and e-mail information through FISC court orders;
- extending the validity of FISA surveillance warrants from 120 days to one year;
- granting phone companies civil immunity from privacy invasion lawsuits related to their cooperation with governmental terrorist surveillance programs;
- extending from 72 hours to one week the timeframe in which intelligence officers may conduct surveillance without a FISC court order in emergency situations.
McConnell, who took over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and their 100,000 employees less than three months ago, assured the participants of the meeting that all legislative initiatives would affect foreign nationals rather than U.S. citizens.
He said the U.S. intelligence community would take a more aggressive posture toward contacts with Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and some other countries that had been involved in spying or conducting terrorist acts against the United States.
The U.S. national counterintelligence chief, Joel Brenner, said in June that the number of Russian agents operating in the country had reached "Cold War levels."
He said in a radio interview: "They are sending over an increasing and troubling number of intelligence officers into the United States," adding that Russia, China, Iran and Cuba were the most persistent and aggressive intelligence threats to the U.S.
