committee. the appearance was scheduled before nsa contractor edward snowden leaked a trove of information about the agency s domestic spying information. but the leak was today s elephant in the room. alexandre argued that american lives have been saved because of nsa snooping. it s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. said that section 702 collection was critical to the discovery and disruption of the plot to bomb the new york city subway system. is that correct? um, that is correct. in fact, not just critical. it was the one that developed the lead on it. meanwhile, presumably on the other side of the world, another revelation from edward snowden, speaking to the south china
is the director of the national security agency says the details are still classified, but he tells lawmakers that phone records were critical in foiling numerous terror threats. it s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. i want the american people to know we re being transparent in here. while u.s. authorities build a case against the man who blew the lid off those survaluance programs, edward snowden has dropped another bombshell, the self-declared nsa leaker hiding out in hong kong, tells a newspaper there the u.s. has been hacking chinese computers for years. meantime, vowing to fight any extradition attempt, he continues those. let s go live to andrew stevens in hong kong. revelations today, andrew, what did snowden say? absolutely. this is just fanning the flames. what happened is there was an
did this collection, this massive collection of phone records, really help stop. here s what the answer was. an approximate number of them being classified, but it s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. okay. so dozens. now, we we collect millions and millions and millions of records through 215. but dozens of them have proved crucial, or critical. is that right? dozens? for both here and abroad. in disrupting or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks. out of those millions, dozens have been critical? that s correct. so that certainly is a new piece of information. we had heard people on the intelligence committee, members
correspondent, dana bash. dana, it s rare for an nsa chief to testify publicly like this. it is. in fact nsa used to be known as no such agency. that s how secretive it is. those days are over, though. and now in the nsa director s first public comments about this sweeping surveillance, he made clear he believes it is protecting americans. it is one of the biggest newly revealed secret program, collecting millions of phone records, has it really stopped terror attacks? the head of one of the most secret spy agencies was ready with an answer. it s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. national security agency director keith alexander told senators he planned to make the number of thwarted plots public soon, in an attempt to prove to americans worried about government snooping, it s worth
the presidential election in tehran tonight. first stopping terror. today the head of the nsa testified before congress that surveillance programs like the one leaked by edward snowden last week are crucial to our national security. it s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. is the u.s. government collecting too much unnecessary data in the process? senator patrick expressing skepticism about the mountains and mountains of information that the government is collecting. all of those millions have been critical? that s correct. is critical information perhaps details that could have stopped the boston bombers