Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters on Tuesday that he approved of censoring snail mail if it was necessary to protect innocent lives.

“If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is,” he said, according to Yahoo News.

The remarks came as Graham was answering questions about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, which has indiscriminately amassed Americans’ phone records.

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The Republican senator explained that censoring the mail had a precedent in American history. During World War II, letters sent to the U.S. from the battlefield were sometimes censored by military officials to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of our enemies Though the First Amendment was “sacrosanct,” it also “has limits,” Graham said.

“We don’t need to censor the mail, but we do need to find out what the enemy’s up to,” he concluded.

On Twitter, Graham objected to how his comments were being portrayed. He accused Yahoo News reporter Chris Moody of writing a “sensational headline.”