Some essential points about PRISM

Some essential points about PRISM 

Leaders of the intelligence committees in Congress defended the program Sunday.

• Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it helped lead to convictions in two cases:
• -- Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born Colorado man who pleaded guilty to conspiring to bomb targets in New York.
• -- David Headley, who pleaded guilty to conducting advance surveillance for the Pakistani jihadists who attacked hotels and other targets in                        Mumbai, India, in 2008, killing 164 people.

• "These programs are within the law," Feinstein, D-California, told ABC's "This Week." And Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC, "The inflammatory nature of the comments does not fit with what Dianne and I know this program really does."

• "The instances where this has produced good -- has disrupted plots, prevented terrorist attacks -- is all classified," said Rogers, R-Michigan. "That's what's so hard about this."

James Clapper, director of the Office of National Intelligence says programs were authorized by Congress

• "In a rush to publish, media outlets have not given the full context -- including the extent to which these programs are overseen by all three branches of government," Clapper said. Clapper's office declassified some details of the programs, which it said were "conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorized by Congress."

• Phone-call data isn't looked at unless investigators sense a tie to terrorism, and only then on the authority of a judge. Officials say analysts are forbidden from collecting the Internet activity of American citizens or residents, even when they travel overseas. 

• Clapper's office said PRISM was created in 2008, targets "foreign targets located outside the United States" and gets reviewed by the administration, Congress and judges. And Rogers told reporters Sunday that "there is not a target on Americans." "There has to be a non-U.S. person believed to be on foreign soil. That is a huge difference than what is being portrayed in the media," said Rogers, R-Michigan.

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