PRISM, the controversial program of the U.S. authorities to gather data and Internet telephony has resulted in more than fifty plans for terrorist attacks across 20 countries to have been disrupted, according to the Director of the National Security Agency Keith Alexander (photo).
The NSA specialises in the collection, interception and analysis of electronic information from telephony and the Internet and in addition to preventing plans to attack the subway in New York, the terrorists also planned a suicide attack in Belgium.
It details arrests that were made in Brussels on 11 December 2008 by the Belgian authorities of members of an al-Qaeda cell which they suspected that they were preparing a suicide attack.
The NSA intercepted an e-mail from one of the terrorists to his former girlfriend which revealed that he plotted a suicide attack. A lawyer in the case explained that the prosecutor acknowledged that the U.S. had intercepted that information and passed it on to the Belgian authorities. There was also a second source in the form of the secret service of “another Western country” which intercepted another communication from the same al-Qaeda cell that also pointed to a planned attack. This information was also relayed to officials in Belgium.