NSA director denies spying on Congress

The National Security Agency’s director, responding to questions from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, says the government is not spying on Congress, Burlington Free Press said. But a two-page letter from Gen. Keith Alexander to the Vermont independent states that the agency can make no guarantee that representatives or senators have not had their “telephone metadata” caught up in broad government sweeps. “Nothing NSA does can fairly be characterized as ‘spying on members of Congress or other American elected officials,’” Alexander wrote in the letter, dated Friday and released Tuesday. Sanders responded Tuesday evening by noting that the NSA chief failed to rule out any snooping on elected officials. “The NSA is collecting enormous amounts of information,” the senator said in a statement. “They know about the phone calls made by every person in this country, where they’re calling, who they’re calling and how long they’re on the phone.