U.S. NSA Internet spying foiled plot to attack New York subways: Sources [View all]

[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.

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

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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