Gordon Gee also took shots at schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville, according to the recording of the December meeting of the school's Athletic Council that The Associated Press obtained under a public records request.

The university called the statements inappropriate and said Gee is undergoing a "remediation plan" because of the remarks.

Gee was on a long-planned family vacation and unavailable for comment, Ohio State spokeswoman Gayle Saunders said. He apologized in a statement released to the AP.

"The comments I made were just plain wrong, and in no way do they reflect what the university stands for," he said in the statement. "They were a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate. There is no excuse for this and I am deeply sorry."

Gee, who has taken heat before for uncouth remarks, told members of the council that he negotiated with Notre Dame officials during his first term at Ohio State, which began more than two decades ago.

"The fathers are holy on Sunday, and they're holy hell on the rest of the week," Gee said to laughter at the Dec. 5 meeting attended by Athletic Director Gene Smith, several other athletic department members, professors and students.

"You just can't trust those damn Catholics on a Thursday or a Friday, and so, literally, I can say that," said Gee, a Mormon.

The Big Ten had for years courted Notre Dame, but the school resisted as it sought to retain its independent status in college football. In September, the school announced that it would join the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports except football and hockey but would play five football games each year against ACC teams.

In the recording, Gee referred specifically to dealing with the Rev. Ned Joyce, Notre Dame's longtime executive vice president, who died in 2004.

"Father Joyce was one of those people who ran the university for many, many years," Gee said.

Gee said the Atlantic Coast Conference added Notre Dame at a time when it was feeling vulnerable.

"Notre Dame wanted to have its cake and eat it, too," Gee said, according to the recording and a copy of the meeting's minutes.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown called the remarks regrettable, especially the reference to Joyce, "who served Notre Dame and collegiate athletics so well and for so long." Gee contacted Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, to offer an apology, which was accepted, Brown said Thursday in an email, declining to say when the apology was made.

Notre Dame has a storied collegiate football history and is perhaps the nation's pre-eminent Roman Catholic university. Ohio State, with about 56,000 students on its main campus, is among the country's biggest universities, and it has its own long football tradition.

A message was left with Smith, the Ohio State athletic director who attended the December meeting and who also is a 1977 Notre Dame graduate. NCAA President Mark Emmert declined to comment, saying he hadn't heard the remarks.

Ohio State's Athletic Council meets monthly during the fall, winter and spring and makes recommendations on athletic policy including ticket prices. December's meeting was at Ohio Stadium.

Gee was introduced by Athletic Council then-chairman Charlie Wilson, and Gee's name and introduction are included in written minutes of the meeting. His comments drew laughter, at times loud, occasionally nervous, but no rebukes, according to the audio.

Ohio State trustees learned of Gee's "offensive statements" in January, met with the president at length and created the remediation plan for Gee to "address his behavior," board president Robert Schottenstein said in a statement.

Comments by a university leader about "particular groups, classes of people or individuals are wholly unacceptable," Schottenstein said. "These statements were inappropriate, were not presidential in nature and do not comport with the core values of the university."

Gee has gotten in trouble before for offhand remarks, most recently during a memorabilia-for-cash and tattoos scandal under football coach Jim Tressel's watch.

Gee was asked in March 2011 whether he had considered firing Tressel. He responded: "No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear: I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me." Tressel stepped down three months later.

In November 2010, Gee boasted that Ohio State's football schedule didn't include teams on par with the "Little Sisters of the Poor." An apologetic Gee later sent a personal check to the real Little Sisters of the Poor in northwest Ohio and followed up with a visit to the nuns months later.

Last year, Gee apologized for comparing the problem of coordinating the school's many divisions to the Polish army, a remark that a Polish-American group called bigoted and ignorant.

In 1992, in a moment of frustration over higher-education funding, Gee told a student newspaper reporter, "the governor's a damn dummy." Then-Gov. George Voinovich laughed it off, and the two became allies.

Gee was named the country's best college president in 2010 by Time magazine, and he has one of the highest-profile resumes of any college leader in recent history. He has held the top job at West Virginia University, the University of Colorado, Brown University and Vanderbilt University. He was Ohio State president from 1990 to 1997 and returned in 2007.

Gee, 69, earns about $1.9 million annually in base pay, deferred and performance compensation and retirement benefits.

He is a prolific fundraiser and is leading a $2.5 billion campaign at Ohio State. He is omnipresent on campus, attending everything from faculty awards events to dormitory pizza parties. He is known for his bow ties he has hundreds and his horn-rimmed glasses.

During his comments to the Athletic Council, Gee also questioned the academic integrity of schools in the Southeastern Conference and the University of Louisville.

The top goal of Big Ten presidents is to "make certain that we have institutions of like-minded academic integrity," Gee said. "So you won't see us adding Louisville," which is also joining the ACC.

After a pause followed by laughter from the audience, Gee added that the Big Ten wouldn't add the University of Kentucky, either.

Louisville spokesman Mark Hebert said the university accepted Gee's apology but planned to forward Gee information about the upward trajectory of its academic and athletic programs. Kentucky president Eli Capilouto declined to comment.

During the meeting, Gee also said he thought it was a mistake not to include Missouri and Kansas in earlier Big Ten expansion plans. Missouri has since joined the SEC.

"You tell the SEC when they can learn to read and write, then they can figure out what we're doing," Gee said when asked by a questioner how to respond to SEC fans who say the Big Ten can't count because it now has 14 members.

Gee noted he was chairman of the SEC during his time as Vanderbilt University chancellor. He also told the audience that speculation about the SEC "remains right here," according to the recording.

Despite his SEC comments, Gee gave the commencement address at an SEC institution Louisiana State University's Health Sciences Center on May 16, Ohio State confirmed. Gee's daughter is assistant professor of Public Health and Medicine at Louisiana State University.

Gee took a swipe at Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, one of the most powerful leaders in college athletics, when he answered a question about preserving Ohio State's financial interests in light of Big Ten revenue-sharing plans.

"No one admires Jim Delany more than I do. I chaired the committee that brought him here," Gee said. "Jim is very aggressive, and we need to make certain he keeps his hands out of our pockets while we support him."

Gee's comments "were inappropriate and in no way represent the opinions of the conference," Delany said in a statement, adding he had apologized to Notre Dame and the SEC.

SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said Gee called to apologize for the comments about a week ago, saying they might become public. Delany called after that, also to apologize. Both apologies were accepted, Slive said.

"Our focus is on the SEC," he said Thursday. "Our goal is to make us better, and we've been very successful and we're comfortable here. There really isn't much more to add to that."

___

Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind., Janet Cappiello in Louisville, Ky., Stephen Hawkins in Irving, Texas, and Mark Long in Destin, Fla., contributed to this report.

[More from BGR: ]

This article was

The 35-year-old Froch, who lost to Kessler in Denmark three years ago, put on a typically gutsy performance to win with a scorecard that read 115-113, 116-112 and 118-110 in favor of the Nottingham fighter to the delight of the 20,000 crowd.

Froch's record is now 31-2, with his only other defeat coming at the hands of American Andre Ward in Atlantic City in 2011, compared to Kessler's 46-3 after an action-packed fight that saw the Dane hanging on near the end of the final round.

"It feels really, really good, only thing that feels bad is I have had to beat a real gentleman and a nice man, Mikkel Kessler," Froch told Sky Sports. "It's 1-1 now, who knows do you fancy a third one? Best of three maybe?

"I deserved to win, but he won't lie down for any man and massive respect to him," added Froch before turning his thoughts to a possible rematch with unbeaten WBA title holder Ward who was watching at ringside.

"The winner of this fight should be moving on to avenge their other loss and now I move on to the second best boxer in the world," said Froch. "Let's get Andre Ward over to the UK and fight him here."

The 34-year-old Kessler, whose only other defeats were against unbeaten Welshman Joe Calzaghe in 2007 and Ward in 2009, said: "I gave it my all but didn't have the energy and couldn't cope with Carl. It is nice to fight such a warrior."

(Writing by Ken Ferris; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

RELATED:

Indeed, Monday's opening day of the annual gaming expo was a chance for the big reveal on both Microsoft's new Xbox One and Sony's PS4 — after   that came out earlier this year, it's never too early to woo casual and hardcore gamers alike. And these systems have moved on from courting just the gamer set — Nintendo Wii proved once again you could win consumers over with easy-to-use interfaces and games that appeal to your grandmother — to the entire family living room, long a goal of both companies but now within reach with advances in motion control, voice recognition, and, you know, the Internet. So, with that in mind, we won't bring up the nerdy Final Fantasy or Call of Duty news in this space. Let's just figure out which of these super-consoles you and yours might prefer come their near-simultaneous release this holiday season.

RELATED:

PS4: $399

RELATED:

Xbox One: $499

RELATED:

Advantage: PS4

RELATED:

PS4 (above at right): Looks like a slanted VCR.

Xbox One (above at left): Looks like a regular VCR.

Advantage: PS4

PS4: Yes, without restriction. 

Xbox One: Sort of. Some games will come with a one-time registration code making re-sale impossible. 

Advantage: PS4

PS4: No.

Xbox One: Yes. The Xbox One must connect to the Internet at least once per day. 

Advantage: PS4

PS4: Yes.

Xbox One: Yes.

Advantage: Push

PS4: Yes.

Xbox One: Yes.

Advantage: Push

PS4: The PS-Eye is sold separately for $60

Xbox One: The Xbox Kinect comes stock with the system.

Advantage: PS4, because at the end of the day it's still cheaper to buy the Eye separately. 

PS4: Doesn't have voice control capabilities. 

Xbox One: Has strange and unusual voice control capabilities. 

Advantage: Xbox One

So, yeah, this one isn't even close. Personally, I think Kotaku said it best: "." There is little doubt among the gamer set about which system will be flying off shelves when both debut later this year. Why do you think is already winning the ? Sony's Playstation 4 is cheaper, stronger, and looks nicer on your television stand. But then again, maybe the gamer set doesn't get to decided this one, right?

(Reuters) - Six former Bank of America Corpemployees have alleged that the bank deliberately denied eligible home owners loan modifications and lied to them about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.

The bank allegedly used these tactics to shepherd homeowners into foreclosure, as well as in-house loan modifications. Both yielded the bank more profits than the government-sponsored Home Affordable Modification Program, according to documents recently filed as part of a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court.

The former employees, who worked at Bank of America centers throughout the United States, said the bank rewarded customer service representatives who foreclosed on homes with cash bonuses and gift cards to retail stores such as Target Corpand Bed Bath & Beyond Inc .

For example, an employee who placed 10 or more accounts into foreclosure a month could get a $500 bonus. At the same time, the bank punished those who did not make the numbers or objected to its tactics with discipline, including firing.

About twice a month, the bank cleaned out its HAMP backlog in an operation called "blitz," where it declined thousands of loan modification requests just because the documents were more than 60 months old, the court documents say.

The testimony from the former employees also alleges the bank falsified information it gave the government, saying it had given out HAMP loan modifications when it had not.

Rick Simon, a Bank of America Home Loans spokesman, said the bank had successfully completed more modifications than any other servicer under HAMP.

"We continue to demonstrate our commitment to assisting customers who are at risk of foreclosure and, at best, these attorneys are painting a false picture of the bank's practices and the dedication of our employees," Simon said in a email, adding the declarations were "rife with factual inaccuracies."

Borrowers filed the civil case against Bank of America in 2010 and are now seeking class certification. The affidavits, dated June 7, are the latest accusations over the mishandling of mortgage modifications by some top U.S. banks.

Mortgage problems have dogged Bank of America since its disastrous purchase of Countrywide Financial in 2008. The bank paid $42 billion to settle credit crisis and mortgage-related litigation between 2010 and 2012, according to SNL Financial.

Bank of America and four other banks reached a $25 billion landmark settlement with regulators in 2012, following a scandal in late 2010 when it was revealed employees "robo signed" documents without verifying them as is required by law.

But problems have persisted. Since 2012, more than 18,000 homeowners have filed complaints about Bank of America with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new agency created to help protect consumers. Recently, the attorney generals of New York and Florida accused Bank of America of violating the terms of last year's settlement.

The government created HAMP in 2009 in response to the foreclosure epidemic and to encourage banks to give homeowners loan modifications, allowing some borrowers to stay in their homes.

THE BLITZ

The court documents paint a picture of customer service operations where managers roamed the floor with headsets, able to listen into any call without warning. Service representatives were told to lie to homeowners, telling them their paperwork and payments had not been received, when in reality they had.

"This is exactly what's been happening to homeowners for years," said Danielle Kelley, a foreclosure defense lawyer in Florida. "No matter how many times they send in their paperwork, or how often they make their payments, they simply can't get loan modifications. They wind up in foreclosure instead."

The former employees said they were told to falsify electronic records and string homeowners along in foreclosure as long as possible. The problem was exacerbated because the bank did not have enough employees handling modifications, adding to the backlog of cases purged during the "blitz" operations.

Once a HAMP application was delayed or rejected, Bank of America would offer an in-house alternative, charging as high as 5 percent when the loan could have been modified for 2 percent under HAMP, according to an affidavit by William Wilson, who worked at the bank's Charlotte, North Carolina office.

Wilson, who was a case management team manager, said he told his supervisors the practices were "ridiculous" and "immoral." He said he was fired in August 2012.

Bank of America said it was not at liberty to discuss personnel matters.

(Reporting By Michelle Conlin and Peter Rudegeair in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have opened a probe into whether a Lockheed-Boeing joint venture that launches U.S. government satellites into space has flouted antitrust laws.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, violated federal antitrust laws by "monopolizing" or restraining competition through an exclusivity agreement with the maker of the engines used in its rockets, according to a FTC document obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

RD Amross, a joint venture of Russia's NPO Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp, provides RD-180 engines for ULA rockets.

Industry sources say ULA is preventing RD Amross from selling the engines to other rocket makers, including Orbital Sciences Corp, which is trying to break into the lucrative market for government rocket launches.

Jessica Rye, spokeswoman for ULA, confirmed the investigation and said the company was cooperating with antitrust regulators.

"ULA's contracts to purchase the RD-180 engine are lawful, pro-competitive and designed to provide the most reliable launch vehicle possible for critical U.S. government missions," Rye said. "Because this is ongoing investigation, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on specifics."

Pratt & Whitney spokesman Jay DeFrank said his company is aware of the investigation and cooperating with U.S. regulators.

The FTC declined comment.

Barry Beneski, a spokesman for Orbital Sciences, said the company had been contacted by the FTC about the probe.

"We have been contacted by the FTC about their investigation. However we can't be more specific than that," Beneski said. "In general, the company supports efforts to ensure there is an open and fair competitive environment in the market for launch services."

Lockheed and Boeing formed the joint venture in 2006 after years of competing for contracts under the Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, which provides launch services for large military, intelligence and NASA satellites.

The companies won U.S. government's approval for the venture by arguing that there was not enough demand for heavy lift rocket launch services to support two competitors since the commercial demand they had expected had failed to materialize for such large rockets.

The U.S. Air Force, frustrated about the high cost of EELV rocket launches, has in recent years tried to infuse more competition into the launch service market.

ORBITAL'S ENGINES

Industry sources said the FTC investigation follows repeated unsuccessful efforts by Orbital to buy the RD-180 engines for its new medium-lift Antares rocket, which was developed in partnership with NASA to haul cargo to the International Space Station. The first Antares rocket was launched from a new commercial spaceport in Virginia in April.

Orbital ultimately used the AJ-26 engine, a refurbished Russian engine that is supplied by Aerojet, a unit of GenCorp Inc, to power the rocket. But that engine is no longer in production and there are only limited supplies available.

To be a viable competitor in the future, industry sources say Orbital needs access to the RD-180 engine, the only liquid propulsion engine in production that is commercially available and can be used for Orbital's Antares rocket.

Orbital developed the Antares rocket together with Aerojet and Alliant Techsystems as a replacement for the Delta II rocket built by Boeing that has been retired.

Orbital has enough AJ-26 engines to support its resupply missions for the space station but needs more engines to be a viable competitor for launches of medium-sized satellites that do not need larger and more expensive boosters.

Orbital is not seeking to compete directly with ULA for heavy lift rocket launches, but says it could save the government money by using the Antares rocket, which costs under $100 million, to lift smaller payloads into space.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Ryan Woo)

In 2006,opened the worlds eyes to climate change and sparked a worldwide conversation .

For the films seventh anniversary, TakePart is asking, What do we know now that we didnt know then? to keep the spotlight on this evolving and accelerating threat.

Former Vice President Al Gore and Jeff Skoll, the films Executive Producer, hosted a live Google+ Hangout Tuesday to discuss the films impactand what you can do right now to combat climate change. Watch the entire Hangout in the space above.

Related stories on TakePart:

AMSTERDAM/BOSTON (Reuters) - Europol said a global effort led by Microsoft Corp to stop one of the world's biggest cybercrime rings has succeeded in wiping out the malicious computer networks that the gang used, known as the Citadel Botnets.

Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, with help from authorities in more than 80 countries, on Wednesday cut off the servers controlling as many as 5 million infected PCs that belonged to the Citadel cyber crime operation, which is believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months.

"Basically the Citadel bug is now clean," Troels Oerting, head of Europol's European Cybercrime Center, said on Thursday.

The details are still emerging about the individual roles that dozens of countries across Europe and Asia played in bringing down the estimated 1,400 botnets that were part of the Citadel operation.

Andy Archibald, interim Deputy Director of Britain's National Cyber Crime Unit, said on Thursday that his agency had seized "a number of servers" as part of the effort and was closely working with the FBI on its investigation into Citadel.

Archibald said forensics experts were examining the servers.

Microsoft said on Wednesday that it had collected forensic evidence from two U.S.-based Internet hosting providers, under a federal court order that the company obtained by filing a civil lawsuit against the unknown operators of Citadel.

An FBI spokeswoman said she could not immediately say whether the evidence collected had brought investigators any closer to catching the culprits behind Citadel.

Citadel was used against dozens of financial institutions by stealing passwords with key logging software. The victims include American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, eBay's PayPal, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo, Microsoft said.

Botnets are armies of infected personal computers, or bots, which run software forcing them to regularly check in with and obey "command and control" servers operated by hackers. Besides financial crimes, botnets are also used to send spam, distribute computer viruses and attack computer networks.

Microsoft said in its court filing that it suspects the developer of the Citadel software, who goes by the alias Aquabox, lives in eastern Europe and works with at least 81 "herders," who may be running the bots from anywhere in the world.

The Citadel software is programmed so it will not attack PCs or financial institutions in Ukraine or Russia, likely because the creators operate in those countries and want to avoid provoking law enforcement officials there, Microsoft said. (See graphic http://link.reuters.com/vem68t) (See legal documents http://www.botnetlegalnotice.com/citadel/)

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt in Amsterdam and Brenda Goh in London; Writing by Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Tim Dobbyn)

The Austrian parachutist known as "Fearless Felix" reached 843.6 mph, according to official numbers released Monday. That's equivalent to Mach 1.25, or 1.25 times the speed of sound.

His top speed initially was estimated at 10 mph slower at 834 mph, or Mach 1.24.

Either way, he became the first human to break the sound barrier with only his body. He wore a pressurized suit and hopped from a capsule hoisted by a giant helium balloon over New Mexico.

Baumgartner was supersonic for a half-minute "quite remarkable," according to Brian Utley, the record-keeping official who was present for the Oct. 14 feat.

The 43-year-old's heart rate remained below 185 beats a minute, and his breathing was fairly steady.

The leap was from an altitude of 127,852 feet. That's 248 feet lower than original estimates, but still stratospheric.

"He jumped from a little bit lower, but he actually went a little bit faster, which was pretty exciting," said Art Thompson, technical project director for the Red Bull-sponsored project.

"It's fun for us to see reaching Mach speeds and proving out a lot of the safety systems," Thompson said in a phone interview from his aerospace company in Lancaster, Calif.

Thompson said everything pretty much unfolded as anticipated, with no big surprises in the final report. The updated records were provided by Utley, official observer for the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Utley was in Roswell, N.M., for Baumgartner's grand finale following two test jumps.

Based on all the data collected from sensors on Baumgartner's suit, Utley determined that Baumgartner was 34 seconds into his jump when he reached Mach 1. The speed for breaking the sound barrier depends on the temperature at a given altitude; for Baumgartner, that came together just shy of 110,000 feet.

He reached peak speed by the time he was at 91,300 feet, 50 seconds into the jump, and was back to subsonic by 75,300 feet, give or take, 64 seconds into his free fall.

His entire free fall lasted four minutes, 20 seconds. He used a parachute to cover the final 5,000 feet, landing on his feet in the desert outside Roswell.

Not everything went well.

Baumgartner went into a dreaded flat spin while still supersonic. He spun for 13 seconds at approximately 60 revolutions per minute, making 14 to 16 spins before using his body to regain control, Thompson said. The skydiver was well within safety limits the entire time, he noted. Baumgartner's brain remained under 2G, or two times the force of gravity, during the spin.

If the flat spin had lasted longer and been more severe exceeding six continuous seconds at 3.5 G Baumgartner's drogue, or stabilizing, parachute would have deployed automatically. Doctors worried about him blacking out and suffering a stroke or, in the case of a suit tear, his blood boiling at such an extreme altitude. The outside temperature registered as low as minus 96 Fahrenheit.

In the foreword of the 71-page report, Baumgartner said he never imagined how many people would share in his dream to make a supersonic free fall from so high.

Some 52 million people watched YouTube's live stream of the exploit.

The scientific and engineering experts who helped bring him back alive "broke boundaries in their own fields just as surely as I broke the sound barrier," Baumgartner wrote.

Baumgartner shattered the previous record set by Joe Kittinger, an Air Force officer, in 1960. Kittinger did not quite reach supersonic speed during his jump from 19.5 miles up.

Kittinger noted in the Red Bull Stratos report (Stratos for stratosphere) that future work is needed to test a stabilizing parachute for use at extreme altitudes.

The private project was aimed, from the start, at helping future space crews whether NASA or commercial survive high-altitude accidents.

If a highly trained jumper like Baumgartner with 2,500 jumps couldn't prevent a flat spin, "an astronaut, pilot or space tourist could not overcome this spinning probability," Kittinger wrote.

Thompson agreed, noting that given the right safety gear and the right conditions, there's "a remote possibility" a space crew could survive even under such harsh circumstances as were faced by the space shuttle Columbia astronauts.

All seven astronauts perished as Columbia returned to Earth on Feb. 1, 2003. One of the crew, Laurel Clark, was married to the former NASA flight surgeon who led Baumgartner's medical team, Dr. Jonathan Clark.

"You never know what the possibilities are ... that's the direction we need to look at," Thompson said.

___

Online:

http://www.redbullstratos.com/

The White House spent much of the day defending the National Security Agencys (NSAs) secret collection of telephone records from millions of Americans as a "critical tool" for preventing attacks, as critics called the programme first reported by Britains Guardian newspaper a heavy-handed move that raised new questions about the extent of the US governments spying on its citizens.

At days end, the flap over the NSAs mining of data from customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications was overtaken by a Washington Post report that described an even more aggressive programme of government surveillance.

The Post reported that the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been tapping "directly" into the central servers of leading US internet companies to gain access to e-mails, photographs, audio, video, documents, connection logs and other information that enable analysts to track a persons movements and contacts over time.

Some of the companies named in the article Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook immediately denied that the government had "direct access" to their central servers. Microsoft said it does not voluntarily participate in any government data collection and only complies "with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers".

National intelligence director James Clapper said the report contained "numerous inaccuracies."

Washington Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti said the paper stood by its report, which was based on an NSA document that it published online.

Taken together, the reports suggested US domestic surveillance, long acknowledged to have become more prevalent since the September 11 2001 attacks, was far more extensive than the public knew.

The Post said the secret programme involving the internet companies, code-named Prism and established under Republican president George Bush in 2007, had seen "exponential growth" during the past several years under Democratic President Barack Obama.

The Post said an NSA report had found that the agency "increasingly relies on Prism" as its leading source of raw material, accounting for nearly one in seven intelligence reports.

Technology companies taking part in the programme, the Post said, included Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.

Mr Clapper indicated that Thursdays reports were indeed significant but disputed the notion that government agents could use such data without a specific investigative purpose in mind.

He also said the programme did not allow the government to listen in on anyones phone calls.

"The unauthorised disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal programme is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans," he said in a statement.

Fuel for critics

The reports on Thursday drew attention to US authorities use of a secret federal court, the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews and approves investigators requests to conduct extraordinary surveillance in national security cases.

The NSA surveillance programmes are among thousands of operations approved by the court in the years since the 9/11 attacks. Under federal law, Congress is briefed about the courts actions.

For civil libertarians and other critics of expanded secret surveillance, Thursdays revelations amounted to a reminder of how the 9/11 attacks increased the governments reach into Americans daily lives.

"These revelations are a reminder that Congress has given the executive branch far too much power to invade individual privacy (and) that existing civil liberties safeguards are grossly inadequate," said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

As Mr Obama arrived in California late on Thursday for a summit with Chinas new president, Xi Jinping, it was clear that administration officials were sensitive to such criticism.

A senior administration official emphasised that although the activities of people in the US were included in the data being amassed by the government, the surveillance programmes could target for investigation only non-Americans living outside the country.

The surveillance programme "was recently re-authorised by Congress after extensive hearings and debate", the official said. "Information collected under this programme is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats."

Its called protecting America

Before the Posts report on the internet companies was published, leading members of Congress who routinely are briefed by the NSA on secret surveillance programmes, and were again on Thursday defended the agencys efforts to build a database of phone records for use in investigations. They said the programme had been going on for seven years.

Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said the surveillance effort had stopped a "significant" attack plot within the US, but did not give details.

"Its called protecting America," added Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.

There was also a diverse group of Republicans and Democrats some who knew about the programme and its scope, others who apparently did not who blasted the gathering of such a huge database of details about Americans phone habits as an unwarranted intrusion.

"The US should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about," said Senator Bernie Sanders, a liberal independent from Vermont.

Conservative Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky called the programme "an astounding assault on the Constitution" and said the Obama administration "had sunk to a new low".

The Wall Street Journal reported that the NSAs monitoring of Americans included customer records from AT&T and Sprint Nextel in addition to Verizon, as well as e-mails and web searches. The agency had also cataloged credit-card transactions, the Journal said.

A new controversy

For an administration that has promoted an activist government as a helper and protector of Americans, the flap over the NSAs surveillance became a new battle front.

Mr Obamas White House was already under fire over another matter involving the delicate balance between security and privacy: its search of the telephone records of Associated Press journalists and the e-mails and phone records of a Fox News reporter as part of an inquiry into leaked government information.

Curious twist

In the coming days, it is also likely that the details of the Guardian and Post reports will be sifted for clues into other US surveillance activities, and who might have leaked them despite the risk of federal charges.

The Post story said part of its knowledge about the NSA programmes came from a "career intelligence officer" who cited "firsthand experience with these systems, and horror at their capabilities".

There also was a curious twist to the Post story, which was written by Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras.

Mr Gellman is a longtime Post reporter; Ms Poitras is a documentary filmmaker who has been working on a film about Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the website known for publishing secret government documents.

In 2012 Ms Poitras made a documentary on Bill Binney, a former code-breaker at the NSA who became a whistle-blowing critic of the agencys surveillance of US citizens.

Reuters