Wiretaps 'foiled terror plot'
2007-09-11 07:22
Washington - Information gained through
a US wiretapping programme much criticised by civil liberties
advocates helped authorities foil attack plots last week in
Germany and Denmark, top US intelligence officials said on
Monday.
US Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell said the
surveillance programme had made "significant contributions" in
discovering and breaking up a suspected plot in Germany to bomb
American installations, and cited them as a reason that the
US Congress should reject congressional 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 programme 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 Centre
Director John Redd told reporters later.
McConnell said the surveillance programme, which includes
tapping the communications of foreign terrorism suspects,
helped track links between those arrested in Germany and the
Islamic Jihad Union, which he described as an al-Qaeda
affiliate.
After "a long process of monitoring and observation",
authorities realised the suspects had obtained explosive
liquids, he said. "And so, at the right time, when Americans
and German facilities were being targeted, the German
authorities decided to move."
Civil liberties advocates have criticised portions of the
programme which allow the monitoring of international calls to
people in the United States.
Congress passed legislation in August easing for six months
restrictions on wiretapping under the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, or Fisa. Some Democrats stung by a backlash
from their supporters have vowed to revise it as early as
possible.
However, McConnell rejected criticisms that the programme
amounted to "spying on Americans" and said it was vital.
"If we lose Fisa, we will lose, my estimate, 50% of
our ability to track, understand and know about these
terrorists, what they're doing to train, what they're doing to
recruit, and what they're doing to try to get into this
country," he said.