While more than one billion people tuned in to watch the ball drop at Times Square on New Year’s eve, a massive counterterrorism operation was underway.

CBS News went behind the scenes to see how the FBI keeps the city safe during one of the busiest nights of the year.

“It’s a nice target – a lot of media, a lot of cameras – to expose the world to whatever some insane person has got planned. It’s a target,” said Randall Derouin of the FBI.

A SWAT team was position in an underground garage. More than 100 FBI agents helped with security. And a bomb squad was on hand.

Robert Mueller III / file fbi photo By Allan Lengel

Terrorism remains the FBI’s top priority,” Mueller told a crowd in San Francisco at the RSA Cyber Security Conference, according to the text of his speech. “But in the not too distant future, we anticipate that the cyber threat will pose the number one threat to our country.”

Mueller talked about how increasingly “cyber savvy” terrorist have become, citing as example, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has produced a full-color, English-language online magazine.

“They are not only sharing ideas, they are soliciting information and inviting recruits to join al Qaeda. ”

“Al Shabaab—the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia—has its own Twitter account. Al Shabaab uses it to taunt its enemies—in English—and to encourage terrorist activity, ” he said. “Extremists are not merely making use of the Internet for propaganda and recruitment. They are also using cyber space to conduct operations.”

“The individuals who planned the attempted Times Square bombing in May 2010 used public web cameras for reconnaissance. They used file-sharing sites to share sensitive operational details. They deployed remote conferencing software to communicate. They used a proxy server to avoid being tracked by an IP address. And they claimed responsibility for the attempted attack—on YouTube.”

To read the complete speech click here.

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With just hours to go before the ball drops, the FBI in New York says  it knows of no credible terrorist threats involving the traditional New Year’s Eve celebration in Manhattan’s famed Times Square.

“While there’s no credible threat, the FBI and NYPD, as they do every year, will have a large security effort in and around Times Square,” FBI agent Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the New York office, told AOL News.

Kolko said the FBI and New York police will have fully operational control centers and teams of bomb techs to respond to suspicious packages. Hazmat and SWAT teams, evidence techs and hostage negotiators will also be on hand.

To read more click here.

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Faisal Shahzad

Just as expected, Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, who authorities say had links to al Qaeda in Pakistan, was given a life sentence Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, during sentencing, told Shahzad, according to the New York Times:  “You are a young man, and you will have a lot of time to reflect about what you have said today, and what you have done.”

Shahzad told the judge:

“We are only Muslims … but if you call us terrorists, we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you,” he said, according to the Associated Press, adding at another point: “The defeat of the U.S. is imminent.”

“If I’m given 1,000 lives I will sacrifice them all for the life of Allah,” he also said. “How can I be judged by a court that does not understand the suffering of my people?”

Though Shahzad, 31,  cooperated with authorities after his capture, he showed no remorse when entering a guilty plea, eliminating even the slightest of chances of getting any break on his sentence.

After sentencing Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara issued a statement:

“Faisal Shahzad is a remorseless terrorist who betrayed his adopted country and today was rightly sentenced to spend the rest of his life in federal prison.”

“The case of Faisal Shahzad demonstrates the global scope of the terrorist threat,” added Janice K. Fedarcyk, head of the New York FBI, in a statement. “Distinctions between home-grown and foreign terrorists are blurred when a U.S. citizen travels to Pakistan to learn bomb-making from a known terrorist organization, then returns to the U.S. and receives financial backing from the overseas organization.

” However you define him, there’s no question that Shahzad built a mobile weapon of mass destruction and hoped and intended that it would kill large numbers of innocent people – and planned to do it again two weeks later.”

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Faisal Shahzad

The man known as the Times Square Bomber planned to set off an additional bomb two weeks later, according to court papers filed by prosecutors  Wednesday, which urged the judge to give Faisal Shahzad a life sentence.

The  papers, a sentencing memorandum,  said that Shahazd hoped to kill 40 people in the first bombing, which ended up being a dud. And he planned to set off additional bombs “until he was captured or killed.”  He was arrested at JFK  airport while trying to flee the country.

Shahzad “had every intention of delivering a powerful and terrorizing strike to the heart of New York City,” the court papers said, adding that Shahzad showed no remorse when pleading guilty on June 21.

In a 40-minute video made in Pakistan, he says, according to court papers;

“I have been trying to join my brothers in jihad ever since 9/11 happened. I am planning to wage an attack inside America.”

He then appealled to his fellow Muslims: “I also want to inform my brothers Muslim abroad living abroad [sic] that it is not difficult at all to wage an attack on the West, and specifically in the U.S., and completely defeat them inshallah. Get up and learn from me and make an effort. Nothing is impossible if you just keep in mind that Allah is with you.”

Read Shahzad Sentencing Memorandum

Faisal Shahzad

If there was any question whether Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad might catch a break during sentencing for fully cooperating with the FBI, his statements in court on Monday may have cleared that all up: It’s highly highly unlikely.

Shahzad pleaded guilty Monday and then warned the court of more attacks and accused the U.S. of “terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people,” according to the Washington Post.

“It’s a war,” he told the judge.

He said, according to the Washington Post, if the U.S. didn’t get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim nations, “we will be attacking U.S.” and that Americans “only care about their people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.”

To read more click here.

Faisal Shahzad

The legal fate of Faisal Shahzad, the confessed Times Square car bomb plotter, remained unclear this week.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz in Manhattan postponed a preliminary hearing that had been set for earlier this week on Tuesday, the deadline for the government to file an indictment or possibly go for a criminal information, which is normally issued when a defendant plans to plead guilty, court records show.

The judge granted a 20-day continuance on the case, which the prosecution had requested and the defense agreed to , according to the New York Times. Under that arrangement, Shahzad waived his right to be charged in an indictment or information for the time being.

By Allan Lengel

The crime isn’t kosher, but the prison meals certainly are for Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad. One night the menu calls for vegetarian stuffed cabbage; the next, kosher beef meatloaf or turkey cutlet.

New York U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis last week granted a request by Shahzad, charged with five felony counts including trying to explode a weapon of mass destruction, to eat “halal” food at the federal-run Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Halal food is defined as meeting the dietary laws of Islam.

In federal prison, that means kosher food, which meets the same standards as halal food, James Davis, executive assistant at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, told AOL News.

“No pork, no shellfish,” he said. The animals are also slaughtered in similar ways for both kosher and halal meat.

To read full story click here.