It’s not clear whether Wyden’s push-back on Clapper’s response was part of the scripted exchange. Senator Wyden revealed later that the question had been given to Clapper in advance:

So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance.

General Keith B. Alexander.

Acccording to the ACLU, the dragnet extends to AT&T and Sprint as well.

Wyden’s incredulity makes sense given what President Obama revealed in his statement on NSA spying, that the entirety of Congress was privy to the phone records program, and members of the intelligence committees, like Senator Wyden, were briefed on the Internet data surveillance.

I mean, take a look at our Data Center in Utah.

It’s a million square feet! Who knows what all goes on in there inadvertently. Lots of room for your inadvertent, unwitting-type stuff to occur. You don’t even measure a structure that large in football fields, you measure it in Liechtensteins, like how many alpine principalities you can fit in there. We’re storing data in yottabytes in there. That word just sounds crazy, but that’s what sort of data collection we’re doing. So, yes, maybe there’s some inadvertent Constitution violation going on in there.

It’s doubtful that Senator Wyden’s request for a YES or NO response was due to time constraints but, rather, to get the Director of National Intelligence, known by Wyden to sit atop a vast spying endeavor, to address the programs on the record in response to Congressional inquiry.

However, the question was not a surprise, it turns out. Senator Wyden offered this statement on June 11, 2013:

One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community. This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions. When NSA Director Alexander failed to clarify previous public statements about domestic surveillance, it was necessary to put the question to the Director of National Intelligence. So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance. After the hearing was over my staff and I gave his office a chance to amend his answer. Now public hearings are needed to address the recent disclosures and the American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives.