In one case, an attempt to bomb the New York Stock Exchange was thwarted, Army Gen. Keith Alexander says.
The director of the National Security Agency insisted today that the government’s sweeping surveillance programs have foiled some 50 terrorist plots worldwide, including one directed at the New York Stock Exchange, in a forceful defense echoed by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee.
Army Gen. Keith Alexander said the two recently disclosed programs — one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism — are critical in the terrorism fight.
Intelligence officials have disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks, and Alexander offered some information on other attempts.
The programs “assist the intelligence community to connect the dots,” Alexander told the committee in a rare, open Capitol Hill hearing.
Alexander got no disagreement from the leaders of the panel, who have been outspoken in backing the programs since Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, disclosed information to The Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the committee, and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, said the programs were vital to the intelligence community and assailed Snowden’s actions as criminal.
“It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside,” Rogers said.
Ruppersberger said the “brazen disclosures” put the United States and its allies at risk.