Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has admitted that the National Security Agency should have disclosed more about the bulk data collection that it has engaged in for more than a decade. He made the surprising statements in an interview with The Daily Beast.

The bulk data program is designed to collect certain information on all US phone calls, although there have been recent disagreements about how much cell phone data is swept up. In the interview, Clapper said the controversy could have been avoided if more information about the program was disclosed at its outset, back in 2001. He suggests the public, still shaken from the 9/11 attacks, would have been on board with such a program. Clapper said:

I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the outset right after 9/11—which is the genesis of the 215 program—and said both to the American people and to their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set up, here is how it’s going to work, and why we have to do it, and here are the safeguards… We wouldn’t have had the problem we had. What did us in here, what worked against us was this shocking revelation. I don’t think it would be of any greater concern to most Americans than fingerprints. Well people kind of accept that because they know about it. But had we been transparent about it and say here’s one more thing we have to do as citizens for the common good, just like we have to go to airports two hours early and take our shoes off, all the other things we do for the common good, this is one more thing.

Since the NSA leaks began, Clapper has become one of the most controversial figures in US intelligence. Last month, several members of Congress said that President Obama should fire Clapper. It was Clapper who was asked by Senator Ron Wyden last year, before the Snowden leaks, whether the NSA gathered "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Clapper responded: "Not wittingly."

Clapper addressed that statement in the interview, saying he misunderstood Wyden's question. He believed Wyden was referring to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the NSA treats as the basis for PRISM and other data-collection programs.

"I was not even thinking of what he was asking about, which is, of course, we now all know as section 215 of the Patriot Act governing the acquisition and storage of telephony business records metadata," Clapper told The Daily Beast. "Wasn’t even thinking of that."

He also reiterated his position that the bulk data collection should continue, comparing it to a kind of "fire insurance."

"For me it was not some massive assault on civil liberties and privacy because of what we actually do and the safeguards that are put on this," said Clapper. "To guard against perhaps, these days, low probability but a very (high) impact thing if it happens. I buy fire insurance ever since I retired, the wife and I bought a house out here and we buy fire insurance every year. Never had a fire. But I am not gonna quit buying my fire insurance; same kind of thing."