An Ohio man’s plot to attack the U.S. Capitol was thwarted through the use of a surveillance program that came under fire following Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency leaks.

“We would have never known about this had it not been for the FISA program and our ability to collect information about people who pose an imminent threat,” Boehner said. FISA is the shorthand for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes phone call metadata collection by the National Security Agency, the FBI, and other entities.

Boehner said that reporters would learn more about how FISA programs affected the investigations, especially in light of the coming effort to reauthorize the FISA programs.

“Our government does not spy on Americans unless the Americans who are doing things that frankly tip off our law enforcement to an imminent threat and it was our law enforcement officials and those programs that helped us stop this person before he committee a heinous crime in our nation’s Capitol,” Boehner said.