The US government's sweeping surveillance programmes have foiled some 50 terrorist plots worldwide, the director of the National Security Agency has said.
They included a plan to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and another aimed at a Danish newspaper that had published a cartoon image of the Prophet Mohammed.
In a rare open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, Army General Keith Alexander said the two recently disclosed programmes are "critical" in the fight against terrorism.
The programmes "assist the intelligence community to connect the dots", he told the committee in the Capitol Hill hearing.
The National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland Gen Alexander said just over 10 of the plots thwarted had a connection inside the US and most were helped by the review of phone records.
He said he would provide Congress with details of the plots, but added that those details would be classified.
The NSA programmes aim to gather US phone records and track the use of US-based internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism.
Details of the programmes were leaked to The Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former contractor for NSA.
Gen Alexander said Mr Snowden's leaks have caused "irreversible and significant damage to this nation" and undermined the US relationship with allies.
Snowden is believed to be in Hong Kong In one of the few examples given to the panel, Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce said the NSA was able to identify an extremist in Yemen who was in touch with a man in Kansas City, Missouri, named Khalid Ouazzani.
This enabled authorities to identify co-conspirators and thwart the plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, he said.
Ouazzani pleaded guilty in May 2010 in federal court in Missouri to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organisation, bank fraud and money laundering.
However, he was not charged with the alleged plot against the stock exchange.
Mr Joyce also said a terrorist financier in San Diego was identified and arrested in October 2007 because of a phone record provided by the NSA.
Many on the panel have been outspoken in backing the programmes.
Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the committee, said: "It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside."
President Barack Obama vigorously defended the surveillance programmes in a lengthy interview on Monday.
Mr Snowden, meanwhile, accused members of Congress and administration officials in an online interview of exaggerating their claims about the success of the data-gathering programmes.
The American citizen, believed to be in Hong Kong, said he planned to release more details on how he says the NSA can gain direct access to internet data on private servers.
In an interview with Fox News, Mr Snowden's father, Lon Snowden, has defended his son's integrity and said he hoped he would not do anything that might be considered treasonous.
He said: "I would like to see Ed come home and face this. I shared that with the government when I spoke with them. I love my son."
He added: "I would rather my son be a prisoner in the US than a free man in a country that did not have ... the freedoms that are protected" in America.
The US has launched a criminal investigation to prosecute the whistleblower for lifting and exposing the classified material.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
NSA Chief: Spying 'Foiled 50 Terror Plots'
Dengan url
http://badutjayus.blogspot.com/2013/06/nsa-chief-spying-foiled-50-terror-plots.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
NSA Chief: Spying 'Foiled 50 Terror Plots'
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
NSA Chief: Spying 'Foiled 50 Terror Plots'
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar