Keith B. Alexander

Keith B. Alexander   (spook)
Alexander in 2013
Born	1951-12-02
Member of	Amazon, Middle East Media Research Institute
Chief of the NSA, infamous for his mendacious denials regarding the illegal mass surveillance of US citizens.  Director of the National Security Agency  In office August 1, 2005 - March 28, 2014 Preceded by William B. Black Succeeded by Michael Rogers An infamously mendacious tenure

Keith Alexander is a four-star general in the United States Army, who as NSA director became infamous for a set of mendacious denials regarding the NSA's mass surveillance of US citizens.

Lies to the public regarding NSA operations

In July 2012, in response to a question from DEF CON founder Jeff Moss asking “does the NSA really keep a file on everyone?,” Alexander replied, “No, we don’t. Absolutely no. And anybody who would tell you that we’re keeping files or dossiers on the American people knows that’s not true.”

In March 2012, in response to questions during a U.S. congressional hearing from Representative Hank Johnson about allegations made by former NSA officials that the NSA engages in collection of voice and digital information of U.S. citizens Alexander was asked in a number of ways, and replied that, despite the allegations of "James Bashford" [sic] in Wired, the NSA does not collect that data.

On July 9, 2012, when asked by a member of the press if a large data center in Utah was used to store data on American citizens, Alexander stated, "No. While I can't go into all the details on the Utah data center, we don't hold data on U.S. citizens."

At DEF CON 2012, Alexander was the keynote speaker; during the question and answers session, in response to the question "Does the NSA really keep a file on everyone, and if so, how can I see mine?" Alexander replied "Our job is foreign intelligence" and that "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false...From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense."

On June 6, 2013, the day after Snowden's revelations, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper released a statement admitting the NSA collects telephony metadata on millions of Americans telephone calls. This metadata information included originating and terminating telephone number, telephone calling card number, IMEI number, time and duration of phone calls.

Andy Greenberg of Forbes said that NSA officials, including Alexander, in the years 2012 and 2013 "publicly denied–often with carefully hedged words–participating in the kind of snooping on Americans that has since become nearly undeniable." In September 2013, Alexander was asked by Senator Mark Udall if it is the goal of the NSA to "collect the phone records of all Americans", to which Alexander replied:

"Yes, I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search."
Keith B. Alexander, September 2013

The '54 Events'

Alexander claimed that the mass surveillance prevented 54 terrorist events directed against the U.S. ("42 Plots" and "12 Occurrences of Support to Terrorism"). Sen. Patrick Leahy pressed Alexander on the issue of the 54 events at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, asking Alexander “Would you agree that the 54 cases that keep getting cited by the administration were not all plots, and of the 54, only 13 had some nexus to the U.S.? Would you agree with that, yes or no?” Alexander replied “Yes” but did not elaborate.

Assessing the impact of the NSA's mass surveillance programme on the alleged 54 cases is difficult since, while the agency has allegedly provided a full list to Congress, it remains classified. The congressionally-established Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) investigation (pp. 145-153) concluded that mass surveillance had not played an important part in thwarting a single terrorist event.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
A New Initiative for Poland: A Future Leader in Securing the Fourth Industrial Revolution	16 January 2019	17 January 2019	Poland Warsaw	Conference in Poland in January 2019 planned by the Cyber Statecraft Initiative, sponsored by the Atlantic Council and Bank Polski.
Bilderberg/2008	5 June 2008	8 June 2008	US Virginia Chantilly	The 56th Bilderberg, Chantilly, Virginia, 139 guests
Bilderberg/2009	14 May 2009	17 May 2009	Greece Vouliagmeni	The 57th Bilderberg
Bilderberg/2011	9 June 2011	12 June 2011	Switzerland Hotel Suvretta St. Moritz	59th meeting, in Switzerland, 129 guests
Bilderberg/2012	31 May 2012	3 June 2012	US Virginia Chantilly	The 58th Bilderberg, in Chantilly, Virginia. Unusually just 4 years after an earlier Bilderberg meeting there.
Bilderberg/2014	29 May 2014	1 June 2014	Denmark Copenhagen Marriott Hotel	The 62nd Bilderberg, with 136 guests, held in Copenhagen
Munich Security Conference/2013	1 February 2013	3 February 2013	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 49th Munich Security Conference

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