Chertoff: NSA surveillance vital to our safety

Michael Chertoff | USATODAY

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community was criticized for failing to "connect the dots." Our investigation of the attack revealed connections among the 9/11 hijackers themselves as well as communications they had with known foreign terrorist locations overseas.

One example discovered was that of communication between 9/11 hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar who was in California and a known al-Qaeda safe house in Yemen. At the time, the National Security Agency had collected the Yemen end of the communications. However, due to the nature of this collection, the U.S. government had no way of determining the telephone number or the location of al-Mihdhar. Had the government been able to locate him in San Diego, it might well have been the key lead to disrupting the 9/11 attacks.

This type of signals intelligence – the ability to intercept signals or communications particularly where there is a reason to believe one or more parties is a foreign terrorist -- is essential in today's modern world of global networks and interaction.

It is with this in mind and the vivid memory of 9/11 that the intelligence community and in particular, the National Security Agency, has developed new counterterrorism capabilities that allow us to better detect and pinpoint terrorist threats to the U.S. It is exactly these types of capabilities, authorized repeatedly by Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and with strict legal oversight by the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which allowed us to hunt down terrorists overseas and disrupt dozens of harmful plots since 9/11.

I have described intelligence today as equivalent to the 21st Century version of radar. Previously, when the U.S. feared an attack, we used radar as our eyes and ears to detect enemy aircraft or bombs that may be heading for the U.S. or Europe. However, this is not possible when dealing with terrorists who operate in often remote, ungoverned places around the world with no traditional weapons or military fleets. This enemy is different. They disguise themselves as civilians and exploit our very own transportation infrastructure and communication networks against us.

Terrorists come in under the cover of deception. They cannot be detected by radar. They can only be detected by the use, analysis and sharing of intelligence that allows us to separate those who are a threat from those who are innocent. Often this is accomplished by intercepting information reflecting the communication, financial and travel activity which terrorists must use to plan and execute attacks. This is exactly what the NSA and indeed our entire intelligence community does.

For example, according to public reports, recently disclosed NSA programs led U.S. officials to connect an email about a recipe for explosives with a known terrorist located in Pakistan. When seeking to find out with whom the terrorist was in contact, intelligence officials discovered Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-American residing at the time in Colorado who was planning to blow up the New York subway system. If this plot had not been discovered, many believe it would have been the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.

In January 2009, the NSA used authorized capabilities to monitor the communications of an extremist overseas with ties to al-Qaeda and discovered a connection with an individual in Kansas City. This information was provided to the FBI who through their investigation discovered a plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange.

In both cases, the NSA was able to connect known al-Qaeda associates with individuals plotting an attack here in the United States.

Twelve years after 9/11, we have made tremendous progress in strengthening security to prevent threats from reaching our shores as well as detecting those who have already infiltrated our nation. We also face a more dangerous enemy. The al-Qaeda we once knew as a central, integrated terrorist organization has morphed into a widely dispersed new generation of fighters seeking to launch attacks from a much wider region of operations. While their ability to repeat large-scale, iconic attacks largely has been diminished, these operatives are willing to take more risks today and attempt smaller scale operations that still pose a serious danger to U.S. interests around the world.

To be sure, we should periodically revisit our intelligence authorities to assure that they are not unduly and unnecessarily intrusive. In fact, several times since 9/11, Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have modified the rules of intelligence collection to balance security and privacy interests. There are ways to adjust the current regime for storing meta data, for example, so as to afford more transparency and assurance against abuse. But we should not call into question the fundamental contribution that signals intelligence makes to our safety. Without a global ability to swiftly identify known and unknown threats heading our way in the future, we will have more unhappy anniversaries like September 11.

Michael Chertoff was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009 and is now chairman of The Chertoff Group and an unpaid NSA advisor. The views expressed are his alone.