The director of the National Security Agency testified before Congress today to defend the NSA surveillance programs that were made public after they were leaked to the press by Edward Snowden. He said that the programs helped stop over 50 terrorist plots.

According to ABC News, Gen. Keith Alexander spoke before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that programs such as the Internet monitoring program PRISM and the requests for telephone records helped stop attacks on the New York Stock Exchange and other targets since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. “In recent years, these programs, together with other intelligence, have protected the U.S and our allies from terrorist threats across the globe to include helping prevent the potential terrorist events over 50 times since 9/11,” Alexander said.

Alexander noted that at least 10 of these plots included targets within the U.S.

The Washington Post reports that FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce also spoke, talking specifically about the attack on the NYSE. He noted that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provision let the agencies track a “known extremist in Yemen.” He explained, “The NSA, using the business record FISA, tipped us off that this individual had indirect contacts with a known terrorist overseas. We were able to reopen this investigation, identify additional individuals through a legal process and were able to disrupt this terrorist activity.”

Alexander testified that if a surveillance program was in place before Sept. 11, 2001, they may have known that hijacker Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar was communicating with al Qaeda from San Diego.

“This isn't some rogue operation that some guys at the NSA are operating,” Alexander said about the programs.

Members of Congress on the House committee agreed that these programs were keeping the country safe and blasted inaccurate reports, notes USA Today.

“Trust can wane when faced with so many inaccuracies,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) commented. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland) added that the leaks “put our country and allies in danger.”

President Obama was on Charlie Rose’s PBS show last night, again defending the programs. “What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your e-mails,” he told Rose, adding that, “They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be ‘they,’ it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause.”