U.S. officials: Surveillance programs helped stop 50 terrorist plots - cruzsqualoodding1939

U.S. jurisprudence enforcement agencies have disrupted more than 50 terrorist plots in the In league States and other countries with the assistanc of controversial surveillance efforts at the U.S. National Certificate Agency, governance officials said Tuesday.

National Security Agency surveillance programs recently exposed by NSA contractor Edward IV Snowden have played a tonality role in disrupting terrorist activity in to a greater extent than 20 countries, including 10 terrorist plots in the U.S., since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., NSA director General Keith Black lovage told U.S. lawmakers.

"In the 12 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, we have lived in relative safety and security measures A a nation," Alexander the Great told the U.S. House Intelligence Commission. "That security is a channelise solvent of the Intelligence Community's quiet efforts to better touch base the dots and pick up from the mistakes that permitted those attacks to occur happening 9/11."

Officials with the NSA and the U.S. Section of Justice defended the surveillance programs during Tuesday's hearing, saying the programs are susceptible of rigorous superintendence by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and United States Congress. Officials contradicted allegations by Snowden, who has said the few controls at the NSA are easily circumvented by NSA analysts.

NSA headquarters

The NSA must file multiple reports on its surveillance to Congress and to the surveillance court, and the DOJ audits the programs for deference with the law, officials said.

Disobedient to allegations by Snowden, the NSA is prohibited by police to listen to phone calls or interpret emails of U.S. residents surgery U.S. citizens living overseas, officials said.

The agency does refer selective information about terrorist plots involving U.S. residents to the Regime Bureau of Probe, Alexander said.

The NSA and FBI coif not have databases containing U.S. residents' sound calls, email messages, text messages, video recording surveillance or GPS trailing, officials told the committee. The agencies do not data mine the information they collect, officials said.

FISA

The FISA Amendments Act, one of two laws allowing NSA surveillance, "cannot be and is not used to on purpose target any U.S. citizen or any U.S. person," said Chris Inglis, deputy theatre director at the NSA.

The surveillance court is not a "handstamp" for the NSA as some critics have suggested, officials added. Piece the FISA tourist court ultimately approves nearly all surveillance requests, FISA judge staffers often repulse on surveillance requests and want changes, aforesaid Robert Litt, general counselor in the U.S. Billet of the Director of National Intelligence.

National Security Agency surveillance authorized aside Sexual intercourse through and through the Nationalist Act and the FISA Amendments Move helped cut off plots to attack the Untested York Stock Switch and the New York subway system, as well American Samoa a plot to bomb a Danish newspaper that publicised a cartoon of the Seer Muhammad, officials said. News officials said they will detail classified information about other thwarted attacks lawmakers soon, they aforementioned.

Patc the NSA is collecting phone business records, it can only query those records inside specified rules jell up beforehand by the surveillance court, officials aforesaid. The NSA must then composition those queries to the court, they said.

In 2012, the NSA ran queries on less than 300 phone numbers game in a database of call business records, Inglis same.

Impact of Snowden's activities

While officials disputed much of the allegations Snowden made, the former contractor's disclosure of the surveillance programs could have a "long and irreversible impact on our land's security and that of our allies," Alexander aforementioned. "The foreign intelligence service programs that we're talking about are the best counterterrorism tools we have to go after these guys. We can't lose those capabilities."

Intelligence Citizens committee Chairwoman Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, asked the officials about allegations made by Snowden.

"Is the NSA along private companies' servers?" Rogers asked.

"We are non," Alexander said.

"Does the engineering exist at the NSA to flip a switch by some analyst to hear to Americans' phone calls or read their emails?" Virginia Katherine McMath asked.

"No more," Alexander said.

Still, some lawmakers aforementioned they are comfortless that the NSA is collecting massive amounts of phone records from U.S. carriers. The FISA court's approval for the NSA and Federal Bureau of Investigation to hoard huge numbers of speech sound records from Verizon Communications is troubling and "unprecedented," said Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/452466/us-officials-surveillance-programs-helped-stop-50-terrorist-plots.html

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