NSA denies agency broke into Yahoo, Google networks

The director of the US National Security Agency has denied allegations that his organisation infiltrated Yahoo and Google databases.

It came after the Washington Post broke a story, claiming that the NSA secretly accessed the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centres around the world. General Keith Alexander said such reports were "factually incorrect" and it would be illegal for the NSA to break into companies’ databases.

"Not to my knowledge, that’s never happened. In fact, there was this allegation last June that NSA was tapping into the servers of Yahoo or Google or our industry reps. That is factually incorrect. The servers and everything that we do with those, those companies work with us, they are compelled to work with us. This isn’t something the court just said, 'would you please work with them and just throw data over it.' It is compelled and these are specific requirements that come from a court order. This is not NSA breaking into any databases. It would be illegal for us to do that and so I don’t know what the report is, but I can tell you factually, we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers, dot, dot, dot. We go through a court order." General Keith Alexander, director of NSA, said.

Earlier, the Washington Post cited documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with officials. According to a secret accounting document dated January 9th, 2013, the NSA sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google’s internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters.

In the last 30 days, field collectors have processed and sent back more than 180 million new records. They include "metadata," which indicates who sent or received emails and when and also content such as text, audio and video.