Did the government really disrupt a bomb plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange?

The FBI deputy director said that today in a Spygate hearing where the government for the first time said the secret spy techniques publicly disclosed two weeks ago had halted some 50 terror attacks in 20 countries.

Sean Joyce, the bureau's deputy director, identified Khalid Ouazzani as the culprit. "Ouazzani had been providing information and support to this plot," Joyce testified to the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

According to interviews and court records, the 2008 plot failed, not because the authorities broke it up, but because the alleged attackers decided against it.

The Kansas City man's attorney today said that Joyce's comments were news to him. Among other things, his client pleaded guilty in 2010 to providing money – $23,000 in "material support" to Al-Qaida. He also pleaded to a count of money laundering and bank fraud, and is set for sentencing next month.

"Khalid Ouazzani was not involved in any plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," Robin Fowler, the defendant's defense attorney, said in a telephone interview.

His client's plea agreement (.pdf) mentions no plot. According to his plea agreement:

Defendant and others also discussed how they could perform other tasks at the request of and for the benefit of Al-Qaida. Some of defendant's conversations with others also involved plans for them to participate in various types of actions to support Al-Qaida, including fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Somalia. Defendant and the others he was communicating with about Al-Qaida took various steps and used various techniques to disguise their communications about their plans and assistance to support Al-Qaida.

Fowler declined to comment any further, including whether he would seek to reopen the case, given the government admitting that secret, and constitutionally suspect, methods were used to gain access to his phone records.

New York defense attorney Joshua Dratel said Ouazzani worked as a government informant – a cooperating witness – in the New York federal prosecution of Sabirhan Hasanoff, who has pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. Even the government's own sentencing memorandum shows that the defendants called off a proposed plot on their own, without involvement from federal authorities.

"There was no plot. There was one guy was asked to check out a tourist site downtown. It was a year and a half before they arrested Hasanoff. So if they thought it was really a plot, what were they doing letting him run around?" Dratel asked in a telephone interview.

The government's own sentencing memo (.pdf) dated May 31 confirms Dratel's statements.

"Hasanoff relayed that the New York Stock Exchange was surrounded by approximately four streets that were blocked off from vehicular traffic and that someone would have to walk to the building. The Doctor [an undisclosed high-ranking al-Qaida operative] revealed that, although the information provided by Hasanoff could be used by someone who wanted to do an operation, he was not satisfied with the report, and he accordingly disposed of it. (The report apparently lacked sufficient detail about New York Stock Exchange security matters to be as helpful as the Doctor had hoped.)"

The* Guardian* newspaper, meanwhile, two weeks ago published a leaked a secret court order requiring Verizon Business Solutions to provide the NSA with the phone numbers of both parties involved in all calls, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number for mobile callers, calling card numbers used in the call, and the time and duration of the calls.

The Guardian and Washington Post were also leaked material detailing a program called PRISM, which described a system whereby nine internet companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook had special equipment installed in their facilities that allowed NSA analysts sitting at their desks to query the data directly. The internet companies said they did not provide the government direct access to their servers.

(This story was updated Tuesday afternoon.)

\– Additional reporting by Kevin Poulsen