FBI NY assistant director George Venizelos says Boston attacks ‘scare me’

Assistant director in charge of the New York FBI office George Venizelos focused on terrorism while being honored at the Police Athletic League luncheon yesterday at Mutual of America. “The Boston-type attacks scare me,” he told guests. “The smaller the group, the less likely it is to be exposed . . . it’s the people we don’t know that are flying under our radar, who are living like Americans, going to college, and then, all of a sudden, something snaps.” Asked about controversial programs like NSA’s Prism, Venizelos defended them, saying, “I think anytime we can try to weed out terrorism, it’s important. We are under a major threat. It’s not that we want to be aggressive; we have to be aggressive, we are in a war.” Those there included John Catsimatidis, Mark Simone, Richard Torrenzano, Phil Linz, Art Shamsky and many FBI agents. But it wasn’t all serious. Simone made the introduction for Venizelos saying, “So nice of the FBI director to come here, he wanted to meet you all because he’s heard so much about you from reading your e-mails and listening to your phone calls. We always wanted a government that listens to us, we just didn’t mean literally.”