FBI Official: NSA Programs Helped Foil NYSE Bomb Plot

The U.S. government's surveillance of telephone and Internet communications foiled plots including one to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, Sean Joyce, the deputy FBI director, said on Tuesday.

While monitoring a known extremist in Yemen, intelligence agents "were able to detect a nascent plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," he said in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence committee during a hearing on National Security Agency data gathering programs.

U.S. officials said the programs have helped to foil more than 50 potential terrorist plots around the world.