The White House, facing a fast-escalating controversy over the scale and scope of secret surveillance programs, denied spying on Americans but insisted it must use every tool available to keep the US homeland safe.
Stung by a dizzying 24 hours of revelations on covert programs, the top US spy James Clapper issued a blistering rebuttal of the reports and warned leaks over a separate program to mine domestic phone records hurt US security.
The Washington Post, citing a career intelligence officer, said the National Security Agency (NSA) had direct access to Internet firm servers, to track an individual's web presence via audio, video, photographs and emails.
Some of the biggest firms in Silicon Valley were caught up in the program, known as PRISM, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, PalTalk, AOL, Skype and YouTube, the reports said.
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