<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s Blog<\/a><\/strong> In response to the revelation that the NSA has been illegally spying on all Americans for more than a decade, NSA chief General Keith Alexander claimed that the spying prevented a terrorist attack on Wall Street and the New York subway.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one problem: the claim is completely false.<\/p>\n The Christian Science Monitor\u00a0notes<\/a> today:<\/p>\n According to officials at the House Intelligence hearing, this plan was caught when the NSA was using its Internet intercept authority to monitor the communications of a known extremist in Yemen.<\/p>\n This suspect, in turn, was in contact with an individual in the\u00a0United States<\/a> named Khalid Ouazzani. Thus warned, the\u00a0FBI<\/a> investigated Mr. Ouazzani through traditional law enforcement methods, and discovered a burgeoning plot to bomb the NYSE.<\/p>\n \u201cOuazzani had been providing information and support to this plot,\u201d FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce told lawmakers.<\/p>\n However, Mr. Ouazzani pleaded guilty to providing material support \u2014 in his case,money \u2014 to Al Qaeda, not to terror planning<\/strong>. His May 2010 plea agreementmakes no mention of anything related to the New York Stock Exchange, or any bomb plot<\/strong>,\u00a0notes David Kravets in Wired<\/a> magazine.<\/p>\n Plus, Ouazzani\u2019s defense attorney said Tuesday the stock market allegation was news to him.<\/p>\n \u201cKhalid Ouazzani was not involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange,<\/strong>\u201d attorney Robin Fowler told Wired.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n How much did this bad guy give Al Qaeda?\u00a0$23,000<\/a> total.<\/p>\n The other publicly-discussed disrupted terror plot \u2014 on the New York subway \u2014 was also not really due to government\u2019s overbroad spying program.<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u00a0reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n Little was offered to substantiate claims that the programs have been successful in stopping acts of terrorism that would not have been caught with narrower surveillance. In the New York subway bombing case, President Barack Obama conceded the would-be bomber might have been caught with less sweeping surveillance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Christian Science Monitor\u00a0notes<\/a> of the New York subway case:<\/p>\n As to the New York subway plot, it was discovered not by analysis of vast amounts of Internet data of foreign users, but rather by old-fashioned police work,\u00a0according to The Guardian<\/a> \u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition, the Guardian\u00a0pointed out<\/a>:<\/p>\n Lawyers and intelligence experts with direct knowledge of two intercepted terrorist plots that the Obama administration says confirm the value of the\u00a0NSA\u2019s vast data-mining activities<\/a> have questioned whether the surveillance sweeps played a significant role \u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed,\u00a0top security experts<\/a> say that mass surveillance does\u00a0not<\/em> help keep us safe.<\/p>\n Glenn Greenwald\u00a0notes<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n This is just the same playbook that U.S. government officials have been using for the last five decades whenever anything gets done that brings small amounts of transparency to the bad conduct that they do in the dark. They immediately accuse those who brought that transparency of jeopardizing national security. They try and scare the American public into believing that they\u2019ve been placed at risk and that the only way they can stay safe is to trust the people in power to do whatever it is they want to do without any kinds of constraints, accountability or light of any kind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Postscript: Mr. Ouazzani giving $23,000 to Al Qaeda is indeed a crime. He supported Al Qaeda, and was rightly prosecuted and convicted for that crime. But given that the American government has been providing arms, money and logistical support to Al Qaeda in\u00a0Syria<\/a>,\u00a0Libya, Mali<\/a>,\u00a0Bosnia<\/a> and other countries \u2014 and related Muslim terrorists in\u00a0Chechnya<\/a>,\u00a0Iran<\/a>, and\u00a0many other countries<\/a> \u2014 Mr. Ouazzani\u2019s support for terrorism seems rather small in comparison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In response to the revelation that the NSA has been illegally spying on all Americans for more than a decade, NSA chief General Keith Alexander claimed that the spying prevented a terrorist attack on Wall Street and the New York subway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nJune 19, 2013<\/p>\n