US spymaster: Phone snooping has smashed terrorist plots

The director of America’s National Security Agency claims snooping programmes on millions of citizens have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots.

At a US Senate hearing, General Keith Alexander defended the practice of spying via internet and telephone data, which was revealed by a whistleblower who has now fled to Hong Kong.

Edward Snowden, the ex-intelligence worker who leaked the information, vowed to fight extradition but insisted: “I am not here to hide from justice.”

Gen Alexander told the Senate intelligence committee the public needed to know more about the secret surveillance, amid fears that personal freedoms are being breached.

“It’s important we get this right, and I want the American people to know we’re trying to be transparent here, protect civil liberties and privacy but also the security of this country,” he said, adding: “It’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent.”

He said some details would stay secret “because if we tell the terrorists every way we’re going to track them, they will get through and Americans will die.” Officials insist agents do not listen to Americans’ phone calls, and the internet programme targets foreigners.

Mr Snowden, 29, fled Hawaii before the reports in the Guardian and Washington Post last week. After vanishing from his hotel yesterday, he told South China Morning Post he was “neither a traitor nor hero. I’m an American. People who think I made a mistake picking Hong Kong misunderstand my intention. I am here to reveal criminality.”

He also claimed the NSA was snooping on thousands of computers in China.