PRISM's value was overstated, NSA chief acknowledges

Earlier this month, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Patrick Leahy pressed the NSA's director, General Keith Alexander, on whether the figures that are used to support data collection programs, notably the bulk collection of phone records, are accurate.

Throughout the summer, the Obama Administration and NSA officials have repeatedly told the public how the controversial Sections 215 and 702 (also known as PRISM) of the Patriot Act, were used to stop terrorist plots. At issue is how the two sections are used for various intercept programs, including business records collections. But administration officials as well as the NSA have consistently repeated the point that such intercept programs are managed with strict oversight.

At the Black Hat/Defcon security conference, General Alexander told attendees that 54 terror plots were stopped because of records collected under Sections 215 and 702, and of those 13 of them were in the U.S. Moreover, General Alexander noted that of the 13 plots halted in the U.S., 12 of them were directly linked to the intercept programs.