NSA Director Claims They Stopped Dozens Of Attacks With PRISM

General Keith Alexander is the head of the American National Security Agency. You can only imagine how much pressure he has come under recently due to the emergence of the PRISM scandal and he was recently brought before Congress to defend the PRISM program.

General Alexander stood before the U.S congress and talked about how PRISM had helped them defend against dozens of possible terrorist attacks. He went on to say that the exposure of the PRISM program has compromised national security as well as the security of other countries.

“It’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent. Both here and abroad, in disruption or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks,”

Furthermore he backed up the head of National Intelligence, James Clapper, by saying that the leaks in the media had jeopardised the safety of the United States and its allies.

“Great harm has already been done by opening this up. There is no doubt in my mind that we will lose capabilities as a result of this and that not only the United States but those allies that we have helped will no longer be as safe as they were two weeks ago”

What are your thoughts on his comments? To me it sounds like the U.S Government is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Does it relax surveillance programs and potentially risk being blamed for not stopping future terrorist attacks? Or does it maintain surveillance programs to combat terrorism but continue to face intense opposition and lobbying from the public against the surveillance?

Image courtesy of the EFF