investigators discover the homemade bombs contained tatp. september 2009, arrested for plotting to bomb a new york city subway. zazi gets the ingredients at a colorado beauty supply store, a lowe s and walmart. you are going to get these people trying to monitor what they purchase. reporter: seth jones specializes at counterterrorism. since ingredients are so readily available, buying the items may not raise suspicions. that s why intel is key. zazi who was identified in 2009 was involved in boiling tatp in his hotel room in aurora was not identified for the ingredien ingredients he was purchasing.
because the fourth amendment says search warrants comes about when the government has probable cause to believe that someone is committing a crime and then the warrant, senator paul is correct, must describe the person or place to be seized or the thing to be searched. and these general warrants of the secret fisa court gives out do not do that. instead they say you may seize all the phone calls in area code zip code or a particular telecom like verizon. that is more information than the nsa can possibly go through. and it is a profound violation of the fourth amendment and, therefore, the civil liberties of everyone whose records have been seized. judge, what do you say to former attorney general who s on fox earlier and he said look this has been helpful, this program led us right to the door of zazi? he s profoundly incorrect. zazi was discovered by a
is more from a terrorist standpoint. all indicators are at this point in time this was not a terrorist attack although i will tell you that al qaeda is intent on hitting subway trains and trains themselves as they did in spain, the uk and then the zazi case in new york. so we re always looking at the vulnerabilities that may be in place and what are the security measures that are put in place with respect to trains. very different from airline passengers in terms of the screening. it s more risk based, more intelligence based and canine based to sniff for bombs. i think in this case you had an accident. and congress will be providing oversight to determine how we can better fix this tragic situation. but, congressman, is it time to change the security on trains? why can you get on and off trains so easily without screenings? well again, there s so many people. the cost would be so high. but i think it is something we need to examine because of the vulnerability. the canines can onl
long have u.s. officials been trying to get him? reporter: well he s 29 years old, he was born in texas, but apparently grew up in jordan and in 2007 he was studying at the university of manitoba when he and a couple others decided to go to pakistan to try to fight and kill american troops over in afghanistan. what appears to have happened is that they instead became involved in training and helping provide logistical support for the training attracting more western recruits for al qaeda. they got on the fbi s radar after 2009 when the fbi busted a plot to commit suicide bombings on the new york city subways. zazi was arrested and apparently has been cooperating with the fbi since then. he is awaiting sentencing. what we now know is that this man was believed by at least
president obama was asked directly for evidence that nsa programs had stopped another 9/11. he didn t name a specific one. has there been a single terrorist threat that you say has been stopped by this program? well, in his opinion today, judge pauley refers to three of them. i am virtually with one of them, that s the attempted attack by zazi in 2009 on the new york city subway system. i was actually there with commissioner kelly when this was unraveling, when the plot was unraveling and the nypd and fbi were on to it. this came in large part because of the efforts of the nsa. they were absolutely instrumental in that. there is any number of others. the nsa has given examples of over 50. the judge today cites three of them in his opinion. judge leon last week, you have the president of the united states, director of national intelligence and head of the nsa and cia all saying that the surveillance is important. judge leon is not an intelligence expert. he went outside his lane.