OVER 50 PLOTS FOILED - NSA CHIEF
US : Secret US surveillance has foiled more than 50 terror plots
since 2001, including a planned bomb attack on the New York Stock
Exchange, a US spy chief said Tuesday, defending leaked programmes.
Google, meanwhile, asked a federal surveillance court to grant it
permission to release the number of national security requests and
secret court orders it has received in order to be more transparent with
users.
Since the disclosure of vast government surveillance programs
targeting phone logs and Internet data, Silicon Valley firms have
scrambled to respond to users angered by perceived privacy violations.
The government has defended the programs as fully legal and vital to
preventing terror attacks.
National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander described
four thwarted plots, including a plan to bomb the New York subway he
called “the first core Al-Qaeda plot since 9/11, directed from
Pakistan.” Alexander, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce and others defended
the digital snooping, which they insisted has kept America safe since
2001, but which has come under global criticism following leaks of
classified details.
“In recent years, the information gathered from these programs
provided the US government with critical leads to help prevent over 50
potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world,”
Alexander said, adding that at least 10 threats were “homeland-based.”
He told the House Intelligence Committee that most details were
classified and would not be made public.
But in an effort to win political support for the spy programs,
details of four incidents, including the New York Stock Exchange plot,
were released.
Joyce said a tip from the NSA, which had traced international phone
calls from terror suspects to Kansas City, led the FBI to get a court
order to begin electronic surveillance on Khalid Ouazzani.
FBI agents then determined that Ouazzani had provided information and
support for a “nascent” plot to bomb the NYSE, and arrested him and his
co-conspirators.
In May 2010, Ouazzani pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide
material support to Al-Qaeda, but the FBI made no mention of a plot to
bomb the stock exchange at the time.
The controversy over the spying programs erupted after rogue defense
contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of them to Britain's Guardian
newspaper and The Washington Post earlier this month.
According to material leaked to the Guardian, the NSA acquires the
call logs of Americans from phone companies and monitors digital
communications with data obtained from Internet titans like Apple,
Facebook and Google.
US officials insist the phone metadata includes no names or
addresses, that investigators must obtain a separate order to listen in
on calls, and that the Internet data searches were only carried out on
foreigners residing abroad. Critics have slammed the spying operations
as government overreach, insisting the public has the right to know the
scope of the programs and the role major Internet firms played in
surrendering personal data to authorities. Google and other firms say
they have received thousands of requests for information targeting tens
of thousands of accounts.
AFP
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