page_title: Keith B. Alexander
section_title: Statements to the public regarding NSA operations
hierarchical_section_title: Keith B. Alexander / Military career / Statements to the public regarding NSA operations
caption_attribution_description: English: Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, center, shares a laugh with other guests before a retirement ceremony for U.S. Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander March 28, 2014, at the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort George G. Meade, Md. Alexander served as the director of the NSA during the last assignment of his 39-year Army career.
context_page_description: Keith Brian Alexander is a retired four-star general of the United States Army, who served as director of the National Security Agency, chief of the Central Security Service, and commander of the United States Cyber Command. He previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, United States Army from 2003 to 2005. He assumed the positions of Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service on August 1, 2005, and the additional duties as Commander United States Cyber Command on May 21, 2010.
  Alexander announced his retirement on October 16, 2013. His retirement date was March 28, 2014. In May 2014, Alexander founded IronNet Cybersecurity, a private-sector cybersecurity firm based in Fulton, Maryland.
context_section_description: Alexander gave the most comprehensive interview of his career, which spanned some 17,000 words, on 8 May 2014 to the Australian Financial Review journalist Christopher Joye, which was subsequently cited by Edward Snowden. The full transcript, which covers NSA operations, Snowden, the metadata debates, encryption controversies, and Chinese and Russian spying, has been published online. On Snowden, Alexander told Joye: "I suspect Russian intelligence are driving what he does. Understand as well that they're only going to let him do those things that benefit Russia, or stand to help improve Snowden's credibility". Wired magazine said the AFR interview with Alexander showed he was defending the stock-piling of zero-days while The Wall Street Journal and other media focused on Alexander's claims about Snowden working for Russian intelligence. In July 2012, in response to a question from Jeff Moss, founder of the DEF CON hacker convention, "... 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 from Representative Hank Johnson during a United States Congress hearing about allegations made by former NSA officials that the NSA engages in collection of voice and digital information of U.S. citizens, Alexander said that, despite the allegations of "James Bashford"  [sic] in Wired magazine, 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, then-Director of National Intelligence James 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
caption: Alexander (left) with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and DNI James Clapper at Alexander's retirement ceremony in 2014.[22][23]
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