Could the '08 Mumbai Attack Have Been Prevented? (American Terrorist) (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigated how secret electronic surveillance missed catching the plotters behind the deadly 2008 siege in Mumbai and how American-born David Coleman Headley, a former DEA informant, played a key role in the plot. (Aired 2015) This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: https://www.pbs.org/donate​ When Edward Snowden exposed the U.S. National Security Agency’s secret mass surveillance programs, defenders of the NSA said the spying was necessary, and they produced an example: David Coleman Headley, an American recruited by Pakistani terrorists to help plan the 2008 Mumbai attack known as “India’s 9/11.” But was Headley’s capture an intelligence success? ProPublica reporter Sebastian Rotella investigated those claims, unearthing evidence of how intelligence agencies didn’t stop the 2008 attack in which 166 people were killed. “American Terrorist” is an updated and expanded version of 2011’s “A Perfect Terrorist.