"Right after Edward Snowden, we’ve got delegations of Europeans coming in, and that was all they wanted to talk about: how awful America was for spying on their countries," Johnson stated at the American Enterprise Institute. "After Paris attack, you don’t hear that anymore. After Charlie Hebdo, you don’t hear that anymore."
In 2013, former contractor at the US National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden leaked some 1.7 million classified US government documents detailing the widespread secret mass electronic surveillance programs conducted by the NSA and other US intelligence agencies.
Following the revelations, US President Barack Obama announced in 2014 that the United States would not spy on its close allies, unless it serves a national security purpose. However, some US lawmakers underscore the need for data surveillance amid increased number of terrorist attacks in the United States and abroad.
A series of terror attacks by militants linked to the Islamic State terrorist group took place in Paris on November 13, 2015. The assaults killed 130 people and wounded hundreds others.
The Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo was attacked by militants in January 2015. The gun attack, which killed 12 people, was allegedly motivated by the magazine’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
