Oracle CEO Larry Ellison thinks NSA surveillance 'essential'

Tech tycoon Larry Ellison shared his views on the alleged NSA's 'snoop-ops' and said that these programmes are essential if terrorism needs to be averted.

Oracle CEO Ellison said that if people don't like what the US government is doing then there is always the option of getting rid of the current government and bringing in a new one. However, he asserted that collection of citizens' data has been carried out long before the NSA, CBS News reports.

Ellison gave the example of credit card data and financial records being collected by banks and finance institutes and said that there hasn't been any instance when such information was misused by the government.

He further said that if the nation wants to minimize the kind of strikes which happened in Boston, then such programmes are essential and added that it would be alarming when the government stops using the surveillance programmes for terrorists and starts looking for people, in terms of political targeting, the report added.