Police Commissioner Ray Kelly launched a stinging rebuke to the federal government’s secret phone- and Internet-monitoring campaign — and suggested leaker Edward Snowden was right about privacy “abuse.”
“I don’t think it ever should have been made secret,” Kelly said yesterday, breaking ranks with other US law-enforcement officials.
His blast came days after the Obama administration and US Attorney General Eric Holder outraged New York authorities by endorsing a federal monitor for the NYPD.
Kelly appeared to firmly reject Holder’s claim that disclosure of the monitoring campaign seriously damaged efforts to fight terrorism.
“I think the American public can accept the fact if you tell them that every time you pick up the phone, it’s going to be recorded and it goes to the government,” Kelly said. “I think the public can understand that. I see no reason why that program was placed in the secret category.
“Secondly, I think if you listen to Snowden, he indicates that there’s some sort of malfeasance, people . . . sitting around and watching the data.
“So I think the question is: What sort of oversight is there inside the [National Security Agency] to prevent that abuse, if it’s taking place?”
Kelly has been on the receiving end of just that kind of criticism. The NYPD secretly spied on Muslim organizations, infiltrated Muslim student groups and videotaped mosquegoers in New Jersey for years, it was revealed in 2012. The NYPD said its actions were lawful and kept the city safe.
After the vast federal phone/Internet-monitoring program was revealed, President Obama said he had struck the right balance between ensuring security and protecting privacy.
But yesterday, Kelly indicated Obama was wrong.
“I think we can raise people’s comfort level if, in fact, information comes out as to that we have these controls and these protections inside the NSA,” he said.
Kelly’s allies viewed his criticism as payback for Holder’s decision to recommend — at the tail end of a controversial court case — that a federal monitor oversee the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program.
“Everything that Ray Kelly does has a purpose,” said City Council Public Safety Chairman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens).
In an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose that aired last night, Obama said that the NSA has not tapped the phones of American citizens.
“What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a US person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your e-mails,” the president said.
Obama also said he is seeking to declassify information about the NSA programs.
“What I’ve asked the intelligence community to do is see how much of this we can declassify without further compromising the program,” he said.
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile