Senate intel chair says NSA surveillance sweeps not 'indispensable'

An influential senator who has doggedly backed the National Security Agency’s mass collection of private data indicated Tuesday that the program was not "indispensable," but disagreed with the federal judge who said the program may be unconstitutional.

"I'm not saying it's indispensable, but I am saying it is important," Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC.

The comments came as CEOs from some of America’s leading technology companies urged the White House to “move aggressively” on reform of government surveillance practices, which have been much criticized since news of their extent was leaked earlier this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Feinstein's remarks and the CEOs’ White House meeting came a day after a judge opined that the agency's vast sweep of private email and phone records was likely unconstitutional.

Feinstein said that the ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, flies in the face of decisions by several other federal judges who have upheld the controversial program. She added that the Supreme Court should settle the matter.

Leon startled the intelligence community with the sharpness of his criticism, warning of the "almost Orwellian" degree to which the NSA is scooping up metadata on nearly every American and how that might be a violation of the constitutional prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure.

But Feinstein pointed to a "real-world terrorist case" from February against an associate of Al-Qaeda, in which another judge, Jeffrey Miller, found the program to be constitutional.

"Judge Leon's opinion also differs from those of at least 15 separate federal district court judges who sit, or have sat, on the FISA court (the secret court set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and have reauthorized the program every 90 days — a total 35 times in all," Feinstein said.

Ultimately, however, "only the Supreme Court can resolve the question on the constitutionality of the NSA's program," she said.

Leon's ruling, on hold while the government appeals, would bar U.S. authorities from continuing their bulk data collection without judicial approval.

In his decision, Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the collecting of the phone records of two men who had challenged the program, and said any such records for the men should be destroyed. The plaintiffs are Larry Klayman, a conservative lawyer, and Charles Strange, the father of a cryptologist technician who was killed in Afghanistan when his helicopter was shot down in 2011. The son worked for the NSA and conducted support work for Navy SEAL Team 6.

The case was brought this year against President Barack Obama's administration after Snowden leaked a trove of documents revealing the scope of the digital dragnet.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also weighed in Tuesday on the judge’s ruling, saying he was aware there was growing pressure in Congress to reform domestic espionage rules.

"We know that senators, both Democrats and Republicans, would like to change the law as it relates to some of the collection activities," Reid said.

"I think we need a good public debate on this," he said, but added that the rulings on bulk collection "don't agree with what Leon said."