Ex-CIA No.2 says NSA surveillance system could have thwarted 9/11 attacks

Former Deputy Director of the CIA, Mike Morell, has reportedly argued that the gruesome 9/11 attacks could have been prevented had the current NSA surveillance system been in place that time.

The Ex-CIA No.2 pointed two elements of the NSA's mass surveillance programmes, namely the agency's ability to query the database and its sharing of the information with the FBI.

According to Cnet, Morell acknowledged that there were privacy abuses connected with the NSA programme, but insisted that such cases were very few when the employees looked into the data inappropriately and those guilty were fired too.

The alleged mass surveillance programmes, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden have stirred a global controversy about individual privacy and national security.

Last week, US President Barack Obama announced few changes to the controversial programmes of the NSA and made it mandatory for the agency to seek court's permission to access phone data that is stored with companies, while the spy agency's database ought to be held by a still-to-be-determined third party, the report added.