Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. Says Wiretapping Helped Foil Terror Plot in Germany - UPDATE

A Reuters newswire article by Randall Mikkelsen, via The Boston Globe, reports that:

Information gained through a U.S. wiretapping program much criticized by civil liberties advocates helped authorities foil attack plots last week in Germany and Denmark, top U.S. intelligence officials said on Monday.

U.S. Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell said the surveillance program had made "significant contributions" in discovering and breaking up a suspected plot in Germany to bomb American installations. He cited them as a reason that the U.S. Congress should reject attempts to restrict it.

"It allowed us to see and understand all the connections ... to al Qaeda," McConnell told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The program also contributed to the arrests in Denmark of eight Muslims, with suspected links to al Qaeda, on suspicion of planning a bomb attack, National Counterterrorism Center Director John Redd told reporters later.

posted by Fergie @ 9/10/2007 03:59:00 PM