Surveillance thwarted attack on Danish newspaper: White House

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Surveillance thwarted attack on Danish newspaper: White House

By Mark Felsenthal and Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON | Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - The U.S. government's surveillance of phone and Internet communications led to the 2009 arrest of a Chicago man who was planning to bomb a Danish newspaper that had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, the White House said on Thursday.

The White House also confirmed assertions by U.S. officials and members of Congress that electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency had helped foil a plot by Islamist militants to bomb the New York subway system in 2009.

The revelations came as government officials continued to defend the broad, secret surveillance programs that were revealed last week by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden's leak revealing the NSA's collection of data from billions of communications each day ignited a national debate over whether the government is intruding too far into Americans' lives in the name of national security.

Some members of Congress - including U.S. Senator Rand Paul, who on Thursday sought to promote a class-action lawsuit against the NSA - have accused President Barack Obama's administration of not telling Congress enough about such surveillance.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-security-denmark-idUSBRE95C1DC20130613

[RC]

1. Right on que.

Who'da thunk, huh?

[suffragette]

5. Yep, and already being disputed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/nsa-surveillance-data-terror-attack

In July 2009, British intelligence began tracking Headley, a Pakistani American from Chicago, who was then plotting to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in retaliation for its publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. Information was passed to the FBI and he was thereafter, until his arrest that October, kept under targeted US surveillance.

An intelligence expert and former CIA operative, who asked to remain anonymous because he had been directly involved in the Headley case, was derisive about the claim that data-mining sweeps by the NSA were key to the investigation. "That's nonsense. It played no role at all in the Headley case. That's not the way it happened at all," he said.

The intelligence expert said that it was a far more ordinary lead that ensnared Headley. British investigators spotted him when he contacted an informant.

The Headley case is a peculiar choice for the administration to highlight as an example of the virtues of data-mining. The fact that the Mumbai attacks occurred, with such devastating effect, in itself suggests that the NSA's secret programmes were limited in their value as he was captured only after the event.

[BlueCheese]

2. Independent of the story, you have to like the last line of the article.

"The administration was working on declassifying some of the material for the public, said the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly."

I can't remember if leaks are supposed to be good or bad anymore.

[GoneFishin]

3. Public Documents Contradict Claim Email Spying Foiled Terror Plot

... "Defenders of “PRISM” say it stopped subway bombings. But British and American court documents suggest old-fashioned police work nabbed Zazi.

Defenders of the American government’s online spying program known as “PRISM” claimed Friday that the suddenly controversial secret effort had saved New York City’s subways from a 2009 terrorist plot led by a young Afghan-American, Najibullah Zazi.

But British and American legal documents from 2010 and 2011 contradict that claim, which appears to be the latest in a long line of attempts to defend secret programs by making, at best, misleading claims that they were central to stopping terror plots. While the court documents don’t exclude the possibility that PRISM was somehow employed in the Zazi case, the documents show that old-fashioned police work, not data mining, was the tool that led counterterrorism agents to arrest Zazi. " ...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/public-documents-contradict-claim-email-spying-foiled-terror

[stevenleser]

4. The legal documents wouldn't contain classified data. There are two hints here. First

"While the court documents don’t exclude the possibility that PRISM was somehow employed in the Zazi case"

and second, what the poster above you noted:

"The administration was working on declassifying some of the material for the public, said the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly."

[roamer65]

6. Hmmm...isn't Denmark an EU member?

Not so concerned about privacy on this one if the story is true, were they?

[Bluenorthwest]

9. What in the story indicates they even knew? Some guy in Chicago got arrested

the Danes most likely had nothing to do with it.

[bobclark86]

7. Wow, awesome!

I'm sure the people of Denmark are paying for this service, right?

WHAT?!?

That's it! We're invading Denmark! DEATH TO THE DANES!


...and I'm sure the guy in Chicago actually knew were Denmark is on a map, right? Since Chicago has such an awesome education system...

Oh, nevermind...

[Savannahmann]

8. I also heard that the PRISM program

Now, I'm serious, I heard that it gave us information we needed to stop a giant lizard sent by the Terrorists from destroying Tokyo.

Give me a few minutes, I'll come up with some other examples of its awesomeness.