Testifying before the House Intelligence Committee in an open hearing on Tuesday, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce highlighted four cases where the recently disclosed National Security Agency programs helped prevent potential terrorist attacks.
1) In the fall of 2009, Joyce said, the NSA intercepted emails that helped in the case of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi.
2) According to Joyce, the NSA helped monitor an extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an individual in the U.S., Khalid Ouazzani, which led to the disruption of an early-stage plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange.
3) Joyce also cited the case of David Coleman Headley, a key plotter in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. According to Joyce, NSA coverage of an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist “found that Headley was working on a plot to bomb a Danish newspaper office that had published the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.”
4) Lastly, Joyce cited a case, shortly after 9/11, where the FBI opened an investigation, but closed it for lack of evidence.
“However, the NSA, using the business record FISA, tipped us off that this individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas,” Joyce said, speaking only in broad strokes. “We were able to reopen this investigation, identify additional individuals through legal process and we were able to disrupt this terrorist activity.”
