committee noted yesterday that this information was collected using section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, rather than the Patriot Act. I still haven't seen any evidence that the NSA's dragnet surveillance of Americans' phone records is providing any unique value to American counterterrorism efforts."
Privacy campaigners criticised the linking of the latest terror alerts with the debate over the domestic powers of the NSA. Amie Stepanovich, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said: "The NSA's choice to publish these threats at this time perpetuates a culture of fear and unquestioning deference to surveillance in the United States."
News of the fresh terror alert came as Congress looked increasingly likely to pursue fresh attempts to limit the NSA's domestic powers when it returns in September.
"The NSA takes in threat information every day. You have to ask, why now? What makes this information different?" added Stepanovich.
"Too much of what we hear from the government about surveillance is either speculation or sweeping assertions that lack corroboration. The question isn't if these programs used by this NSA can find legitimate threats, it's if the same threats couldn't be discovered in a less invasive manner. This situation fails to justify the NSA's unchecked access to our personal information."
US embassies have been closed temporarily in response to similar perceived terrorist threats, but rarely for this long. Four embassies were closed for the first anniversary of 9/11 in 2002; six African embassies were closed for 3 days in June of 1999; and 38 embassies shut for 2 days in December 1998.
"I don't want anyone to think we're leaning toward indefinite closure," Harf said, emphasizing that many of the embassies would largely have been closed or on relaxed hours due to the Eid holiday.
Harf said the threat "looks credible" in response to a question about whether it might have been a decoy once revelations of NSA surveillance became public.
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