Clapper: Maintaining Phone Call Surveillance is like Buying Insurance

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, said keeping logs of US citizens' phone calls is a preventive measure for discerning potential threats. Any legislation that shifts collection from the government to private telecommunications companies -- a move Clapper has said he supports -- could fail to stop a terrorist attack, he added. Following public backlash, Clapper supported a failed 2014 bill, the USA FREEDOM Act, which would let communications providers store the phone records.

The Obama Administration already has changed executive branch rules to order that each log be destroyed after five years. Clapper said he thinks telecom companies won’t be that enthused about holding on to data for the full five years. "I think given the attitude today with the providers, they will probably do all they can to minimize the retention period, which from our standpoint lessens the utility of the data because you do need some -- and we can prove this statistically -- you do need some historical data, if you are going to discern a pattern,” he said. It's better to have the call records on hand, in case they can help thwart a disaster, he said. The policy, "to me, is much like my fire insurance policy. My house has never burned down, but every year, I buy fire insurance, just in case," Clapper said.