U.S. NSA Internet spying foiled plot to attack New York subways: Sources

[JaneyVee]

(Reuters) - A secret U.S. intelligence program to collect emails that is at the heart of an uproar over government surveillance helped foil an Islamist militant plot to bomb the New York City subway system in 2009, U.S. government sources said on Friday.

The sources said Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, was talking about a plot hatched by Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born U.S. resident, when he said on Thursday that such surveillance had helped thwart a significant terrorist plot in recent years.

-snip-

The surveillance program that halted the Zazi plot was one that collected email data on foreign intelligence suspects, a U.S. government source said.

-snip-

On Friday, CBS News correspondent John Miller, a former U.S. intelligence and FBI official, reported that U.S. authorities had discovered the Zazi plot after running across an email sent to a rarely used al Qaeda address that was associated with a notorious bomb-maker based in Pakistan.

The rest: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-usa-security-plot-idUSBRE95617120130607

[villager]

1. And the reason they need to gather intelligence on *every* American to do this is...?

[Savannahmann]

3. Haven't you heard?

They're doing it for our protection.

[villager]

4. "Close your eyes and think of America"

n/t

[geek tragedy]

10. They intercepted an email sent by an American citizen from Denver.

Without a warrant.

Are you okay with that?

[WeekendWarrior]

18. I find it humorous that

anyone actually believes anything we do online is safe and secure from ANYONE. Corporations gather information on every click we make. They mine our emails for keywords so they can target us with their advertising. Bots roam our websites for information. Cookies are planted by every website we visit. Millions of pieces of metadata are scooped up every single day without warrants from anyone, and our government isn't doing the most of it.

In this case, when the government did it, it prevented a terrorist attack. Good. At least it saved lives.

If you're worried about online privacy, start using proxies, VPN and encrypt all your email. That's the only way you'll ever get it.

[Laelth]

61. Just so we're clear.

I'm not happy about corps. collecting all that data, either. However, because corps. are not the government, I have no control over them unless I own shares in them. Even then, for most people, owning shares = no control whatsoever.

That said, I expect some degree of control over what the government does because, presumably, we have a Constitution that limits what the government can do. Besides which, government employees are public servants, so I expect to at least know what they're doing in my name, and I expect to be able to exert some control over them--because they are working for me.

Is that too much to ask?

-Laelth

[Rosa Luxemburg]

65. corporations thrive on taking our information online

good point

[FarCenter]

22. AFAIK, the government can examine anything that is exported, including an email.

Or a first class letter, for that matter.

[okaawhatever]

27. He was not an American citizen. He was a "resident" of the u.s. and was born in Afghanistan. Also,

we don't know it was done without a warrant. I think in this case it was with a fisc warrant, based on an old story about the arrest. We don't have the same expectation of privacy when we send things out of the country. If the u.s. gov't doesn't track something, the other gov't might. Where's the expectation of privacy on something sent to Pakistan?

[geek tragedy]

28. They were monitoring the AQ account, but how did they connect the email to Zazi?

If he registered an anonymous account and routed it through a proxy server in, say, New Zealand, how would they know it was him?

[okaawhatever]

29. track it back to the isp. With that they can get the warrant to identify the owner of the account.

If you remember the case where the librarians went to court over giving records to the feds. The feds came to a librarian with a warrant, telling them what computer and an exact time that a message was sent. They asked for identifying info on the user. The librarians gave it to the feds but then went to court. The court ruled in favor of the feds because the info was specific enough for a warrant. It said you couldn't get a warrant for everyone who used the computer on Saturday. But tracking a specific message was legal.

[geek tragedy]

30. Wouldn't they need PRISM information to trace the email if they used an overseas proxy? nt

[sheshe2]

38. Link please....

[dennis4868]

52. They don't

This is where the misinformation is and I know whatever I say here wont make a difference. But through the NSA program the govt has acces to phone records and if the want to look at the phone records they must go through a judicial review process. That's the law and the actual process.

[kratos00]

2. I want to see Glen Greenwalds

Take on this?

[randome]

7. Something like this, maybe?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[geek tragedy]

8. Wrote about it in 2009

You'll be shocked to learn he wasn't exactly celebrating the arrest of Zazi.

http://www.salon.com/2009/10/06/obama_118/

[Robb]

31. That's hilarious.

Greenwald was demanding the unnamed sources be named.

[randome]

5. So what? A few hundred deaths are worth it so we don't turn into Nazi Freaking Germany!

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Laelth]

62. Indeed.

Turning into Nazi Germany would be a very bad thing, don't you think?

(and I suspect you were being sarcastic, but your post makes more sense to me when read literally without the sarcasm)

-Laelth

[treestar]

66. We deserve it anyway for interfering in the Middle East

!!!!!

This deprived Zazi of the deserved blowback for our attacks on Afghanistan!

The way to have stopped this was for Obama to have convinced American in October 2001 that the Afghanis would have a right to blow back at us if we did anything!!!!!!!!

[shanti]

6. so that's supposed to shut us up?

[Cha]

33. Why would you think that? It's a freaking fact that warrants discussion. nm

[marmar]

9. "Government sources" went out and bought a bunch of lipstick today......

[Cha]

34. That says more about you than the Gov. nm

[marmar]

43. Yes, it says I won't use tortured logic to defend the indefensible.

[Cha]

45. It's says you can't handle facts.

[marmar]

46. "Facts" sound suspiciously like "spin".

And clearly you're very adept at the latter.

[Cha]

47. Clearly you can't handle facts while accusing others of spin.

[Generic Other]

35. Please tell me a pig's lips would not look like that

with lipstick on. I am going to have Sarah Palin nightmares now.

[woo me with science]

55. +100000

[William769]

11. in the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[JaneyVee]

12. I agree. But those killed during a subway attack might not.

[William769]

14. in the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."

[JaneyVee]

16. Not sure how that relates to this article, what about people who fear subway attacks?

[William769]

17. In the immortal words of Robert Green Ingersoll

"What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man."

[JaneyVee]

19. Some may believe that liberty is law & order.

[William769]

20. Once again Thomas Jefferson.

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."

[JaneyVee]

21. Right, except when they collect Social Security & Medicare.

[William769]

23. In the immortal words of Thomas Paine.

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."

When you realize what liberty really means, you'll understand this little lesson given to you.

Have a nice night.

[JaneyVee]

24. Liberty is law & order.

Thanks for the strange cryptic messages I guess. My own personal philosophy is anchored in optimism.

[sigmasix]

57. please show your sheeple the way

someone just discovered the paste and copy function on the computer and married the idea to a short book of political quotes. I can see how this makes you the arbiter of liberty- casting pearls before swine.
I know how this song goes; anyone that doesnt agree with you are just sheeple, right?

[Laelth]

63. Your disdain for the wisdom of our founders is puzzling. n/t

-Laelth

[treestar]

68. It was easier in the 18th century

for that to seem clear as a bell.

Most people probably don't fear the US government in spite of the metadata collection. In fact, most American now probably fear Islamic terror more.

[William769]

71. Liberty is never easy.

Case in point just read DU.

[treestar]

72. Certainly more complex now

than in the 18th century. Yet even then, Franklin referred to "essential" liberty, realizing there could be no crime or law enforcement without some giving of some section of our liberties.

We all have absolute freedom to do as we wish. George Zimmerman did as he wished. Yet somehow we don't want to allow him that much freedom. Society always has some rules.

[William769]

75. The U.S Constitution trumps all rules. nt

[treestar]

77. Non sequitur

Where does it allow all crimes to take place as we all have the freedom to do what we want. There is a balancing to be discussed. Franklin said "essential liberty" as he knew some liberty must be restricted. We all agree or we wouldn't be demanding any prosecution of Zimmerman.

[treestar]

67. "Essential" liberty

What is essential? The liberty not to have metadata about your calls on record with the feds so they can try to track terrorists?

The liberty to walk the streets unrecorded? Didn't Tamerlan and little brother have that freedom! They were deprived of it!

[William769]

73. I refer to the original quote.

I'm sure you would too if the time was before January 20, 2009.

The least you could do is be honest about it.

[treestar]

76. Nonresponsive

Essential is a word in the quote. What did Franklin mean? Would he have argued the government should not have been allowed to use private business video to arrest Tamerlan and Dzochar? Would he have felt no metadata could be used, because not collecting that data is an essential liberty?

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. US government sources? Well then, it's settled. I think the government is here to help.

[hamster]

15. Does anyone believe them at this point?

[Logical]

25. No, tey lie all the time! n-t

[Cha]

36. Yeah, I see no reason not to trust the

Obama Admin.

[Ed Suspicious]

51. Yeah, the Obama is magnanimous just like the Bush Administration just like the next administration

who will put their out slant what ways are acceptable to use this machinery. I don't want it to be left up to executive interpretation in the hopes that they'll be cool with the power.

[choie]

26. and we just killed Al Qaeda's #2 again...

what utter bullshit..

[Hestia]

32. Public Documents Contradict Claim Email Spying Foiled Terror Plot

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. The public documents confirm doubts raised by the blogger Marcy Wheeler and the AP’s Adam Goldman, and call into question a defense of PRISM first floated by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, who suggested that PRISM had stopped a key terror plot.

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

[JaneyVee]

39. Because this was somewhat classified info they couldn't tell people the real way suspect was nabbed

We wouldn't be having this debate if then the Govt said "We caught a terror suspect because we check emails".

[woo me with science]

49. Thank you.

Was just about to post this, but you beat me to it.

The brazen attempts by the administration, and by the familiar, reliable mouthpieces here at DU, to spin a defense here at all costs are really shameless.

[Luminous Animal]

69. [phone]. So much propaganda, so little time.

[Cha]

37. Oh, I think it can be used to protect American citizens..

and that's what the President and his Admin is going for.

thanks Janey

[RobinA]

40. I Have to Think

That an al Qaeda address associated with a notorious bomb maker based in Pakistan could have been surveilled using the traditional and established Constitutional methods. And that assumes I buy this admission that has the lameness quotient of "The dog ate my homework."

[sheshe2]

41. K&R

JaneyVee!

[Savannahmann]

42. So when it happened at the time.

Why did we give credit to the Brits for breaking the case for us?

The plan, which reportedly would have been the biggest attack on America since 9/11, was uncovered after Scotland Yard intercepted an email.

The force alerted the FBI, who launched an operation which led to airport shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi, 24, being charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

And if we could already do this in 2009 under PRISM why are we spending $2 Billion for a bigger facility in Utah? I mean, if the system is up and operating, there is our food stamp money right there with enough change left over to keep Head Start going for a few more months. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

[JaneyVee]

48. Maybe to keep the surveillance program under wraps?

[backscatter712]

44. My bullshit meter is pegged.

Every time we catch federal spooks violating our civil rights, they concoct these stories about how their unconstitutional pet programs caught the Bad Guys, with the usual ulterior motive of keeping these abominations in place and violating our rights.

[Savannahmann]

70. Mine broke some time ago.

Too long at the max reading.

[woo me with science]

50. Here comes the BULLSHIT.

Right on cue as needed!

Public Documents Contradict Claim Email Spying Foiled Terror Plot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2969171

Really, how stupid do they think we are?

[dennis4868]

53. Think DU needs a name change

Maybe WHG = we hate government. Fed govt should never be trusted and we can never assume the govt is looking out for our best interest.

Really crazy times at DU

[woo me with science]

54. Opposition to dragnet surveillance of all Americans is now "hating government."

Defending our Constitutional right to privacy is "crazy times."

You can't even parody the propaganda anymore.

[marmar]

56. 'You can't even parody the propaganda anymore'

Sad but true. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

[LittleBlue]

58. Don't worry, they will change their tune

once the next Republican administration takes power.

Then they will be concerned about their constitutional rights, but until then, YOU'RE OVERREACTING CHILLAX AND TRUST OBAMA

[delrem]

78. At that point it'll be way too late.

This is already too far down the rabbit hole. It has been for some time.

[Egalitarian Thug]

59. They honestly believe we have become so stupid that they can throw literally anything at all

out there and enough of the morons will buy it that, whether it happened or not, becomes moot.

I'm not sure they're wrong.

[Laelth]

60. How quaint.

Just a message from the defenders of the status quo that it might be occasionally useful to sacrifice your civil liberties for just a little more security.

Laughable.

-Laelth

[kentuck]

64. Have you read this?

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

[whatchamacallit]

74. Smells like yellowcake to me

*cough bullshit*