FBI official says NSA programs helped foil NYSE bombing plot

 
The U.S. government's surveillance of telephone and Internet communications foiled plots including one to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, Sean Joyce, the deputy FBI director, said on Tuesday.              

While monitoring a known extremist in Yemen, intelligence agents "were able to detect a nascent plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," he said in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence committee during a hearing on National Security Agency data gathering programs.                      

U.S. officials said the programs have helped to foil more than 50 potential terrorist plots around the world.            

Earlier, General Keith Alexander, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency, said that the NSA's data gathering programs had prevented potential terrorist attacks more than 50 times since Sept. 11, 2001.               

"In recent years these programs, together with other intelligence, have protected the U.S. and our allies from terrorist threats across the globe to include helping prevent potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11," he said in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee.
                 
Alexander said the intelligence agencies would give documents about those cases to the committee in a classified setting on Wednesday for its review and that he would discuss two thwarted plots during his testimony on Tuesday. 


REUTERS