As lawmakers in Washington figure out what position to take regarding the recent NSA controversy where leaks revealed that a number of government agencies had been tracking the phone and Internet records of people stateside as well as abroad, one senior intelligence official said the monitoring data helped thwart a 2009 terrorist plot in New York City.
Over the past few days The Guardian and The Washington Post have been leading the crusade of reporting regarding the probe detailing the different facets of the probe, but on Friday Rep. Michael Rogers, a senior U.S. intelligence official in the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, asserted the program, in fact, stopped Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi from carrying out an act of terror in New York City.
The crucial event that led to the conviction of Zazi came from an email he sent seeking help with a bomb recipe.
CBS News correspondent and former U.S. Intelligence and FBI official, John Miller, said authorities were able to trace the email to a suburb in Denver, Colorado, and then New York.
British intelligence officials flagged the Yahoo account and marked it as one to watch. And because British intelligence and the U.S. NSA work so closely together, according to The Wall Street Journal, it is likely that the agencies collaborated in collecting the Internet data that would bring charges and eventually convict Zazi.
Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the charges and is currently serving a life sentence.
President Barack Obama has been defending the practices surrounding the NSA controversy and declared that our country cannot have complete security, complete privacy, and zero inconvenience.
In order to protect the American people certain decisions need to be made, President Obama said.
Washington lawmakers contend that Congress was consistently briefed about the program and continued to reauthorize it.
And according to statements made by the president on Friday, the controversial program has roots that date back to 2006, when President George W. Bush was in office.
