However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading. An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined. 
 
 Regular FISA warrants not issued in connection with Section 215 or Section 702, which are the traditional means for investigating foreign persons, were used in at least 48 (21 percent) of the cases we looked at, although it’s unclear whether these warrants played an initiating role or were used at a later point in the investigation. (Click on the link to go to a database of all 225 individuals, complete with additional details about them and the government’s investigations of these cases: http://natsec.newamerica.net/nsa/analysis ). 
 
 Surveillance of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorist-related activity, such as fundraising for a terrorist group. Furthermore, our examination of the role of the database of U.S. citizens’ telephone metadata in the single plot the government uses to justify the importance of the program – that of Basaaly Moalin, a San Diego cabdriver who in 2007 and 2008 provided $8,500 to al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia – calls into question the necessity of the Section 215 bulk collection program. According to the government, the database of American phone metadata allows intelligence authorities to quickly circumvent the traditional burden of proof associated with criminal warrants, thus allowing them to “connect the dots” faster and prevent future 9/11-scale attacks. Yet in the Moalin case, after using the NSA’s phone database to link a number in Somalia to Moalin, the FBI waited two months to begin an investigation and wiretap his phone. Although it’s unclear why there was a delay between the NSA tip and the FBI wiretapping, court documents show there was a two-month period in which the FBI was not monitoring Moalin’s calls, despite official statements that the bureau had Moalin’s phone number and had identified him. , This undercuts the government’s theory that the database of Americans’ telephone metadata is necessary to expedite the investigative process, since it clearly didn’t expedite the process in the single case the government uses to extol its virtues. 
 
 Additionally, a careful review of three of the key terrorism cases the government has cited to defend NSA bulk surveillance programs reveals that government officials have exaggerated the role of the NSA in the cases against David Coleman Headley and Najibullah Zazi, and the significance of the threat posed by a notional plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. 
 
 In 28 percent of the cases we reviewed, court records and public reporting do not identify which specific methods initiated the investigation. These cases, involving 62 individuals, may have been initiated by an undercover informant, an undercover officer, a family member tip, other traditional law enforcement methods, CIA- or FBI-generated intelligence, NSA surveillance of some kind, or any number of other methods. In 23 of these 62 cases (37 percent), an informant was used. However, we were unable to determine whether the informant initiated the investigation or was used after the investigation was initiated as a result of the use of some other investigative means. Some of these cases may also be too recent to have developed a public record large enough to identify which investigative tools were used. 
 
 We have also identified three additional plots that the government has not publicly claimed as NSA successes, but in which court records and public reporting suggest the NSA had a role. However, it is not clear whether any of those three cases involved bulk surveillance programs. 
 
 
 
 
 
 to read the full report. Finally, the overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques. This was true for two of the 9/11 hijackers who were known to be in the United States before the attacks on New York and Washington, as well as with the case of Chicago resident David Coleman Headley, who helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and it is the unfortunate pattern we have also seen in several other significant terrorism cases. Click here to read the full report. 
 
 On June 5, 2013, the Guardian broke the first story in what would become a flood of revelations regarding the extent and nature of the NSA’s surveillance programs. Facing an uproar over the threat such programs posed to privacy, the Obama administration scrambled to defend them as legal and essential to U.S. national security and counterterrorism. Two weeks after the first leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were published, President Obama defended the NSA surveillance programs during a visit to Berlin, saying: “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany. So lives have been saved.” Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, testified before Congress that: “the information gathered from these programs provided the U.S. government with critical leads to help prevent over 50 potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world.” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on the House floor in July that “54 times [the NSA programs] stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe – saving real lives.” ||||| A in-depth analysis of 227 individuals recruited by al Qaida or like-minded groups, and charged in the U.S. with an act of terrorism since 9/11, shows the contribution of NSA's bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal, and that traditional investigative methods were more helpful. 
 
 Click here to read our full report, "Do NSA's Bulk Surveillance Programs Stop Terrorists?" You may also click on the selected NSA-related plots below or browse all terror plots detailed on the site. ||||| President Barack Obama on Friday will try to put the ongoing surveillance controversy behind him, laying out reforms to U.S. intelligence-gathering activities aimed at reassuring Americans that his administration will right the balance between civil liberties and national security. 
 
 But Obama’s powers have significant limits. 
 
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 reset Obama defends NSA call-tracking database 
 
 Many of the key reforms he’s expected to endorse — including changes to the National Security Agency’s practice of gathering information on telephone calls made to, from or within the U.S. — will require congressional action. Like the public — and seemingly the president himself — lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are divided on what needs fixing and how to do it. 
 
 “If he punts the ball 16 blocks, all hell’s liable to break loose on the Hill,” said former NSA Director Michael Hayden. “There will be people who will be voting against it because Obama’s reform plan doesn’t go far enough and people voting against it because it doesn’t defend us enough and other people voting against it because it outsources espionage.” 
 
 It’s another challenge for a White House eager to clear the decks for issues that aides want to highlight in Obama’s State of the Union address later this month, such as income inequality and immigration. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Iran nuclear clock to start Jan. 20) 
 
 The snooping saga has been a loser for Obama in nearly every respect. Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked a trove of top-secret documents detailing the surveillance, is still camping out in Russia. The activities angered the international community. And disclosures that widespread and intrusive surveillance continued into Obama’s presidency undercut his reputation as a reformer who would end over-the-top anti-terrorism practices and civil liberties violations many liberals — including Obama and Vice President Joe Biden — denounced under President George W. Bush. 
 
 As commander in chief, Obama could abandon certain surveillance practices altogether. For instance, he could simply shut down the so-called 215 program to collect telephone data in the U.S. so it can be used to trace potential contacts of terrorism suspects. 
 
 But the president has said he’s considering replacing that program with a private-sector-based arrangement that provides the government with similar information on a case-by-case basis. That would require Congress to step in, officials said. 
 
 There’s “going to probably have to be some statutory — and very likely some court — involvement in order to set up the legal framework to achieve that,” outgoing NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis told NPR News last week. “But that’s not abandoning the program. That’s implementing it a different way.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Egypt's not listening to Hagel) 
 
 Obama does have unilateral authority to impose dramatic reforms overseas, since surveillance of foreigners abroad is essentially unconstrained by U.S. law. And the White House has signaled that much of Friday’s address will be aimed at the international audience. Obama has personally fielded the complaints of foreign leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was livid over reports that the NSA had effectively tapped her personal mobile phone. 
 
 Administration officials say Obama is likely to embrace many of the recommendations put forward last month by an outside panel he set up to dig into the issue: the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. 
 
 The committee urged ending the NSA’s program that has collected information on billions, perhaps even trillions, of U.S. telephone calls. A federal judge ruled last month that the metadata program — aimed at running down leads about potential terrorist plots — was most likely unconstitutional, but other judges have concluded that the effort is lawful. The panel urged that much of the same data be stored at the phone companies and available to the government on a case-by-case basis with individual court warrants, something likely to require Congress to impose new requirements on the firms. 
 
 The review group also recommended assigning a public advocate to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, so judges could hear from an attorney advocating for privacy rights and other constitutional protections for Americans whose data is swept up in surveillance programs. And the panel urged changing the way judges on the court are appointed, so the chief justice no longer has the sole power to make such picks. Those changes, too, would need legislation. 
 
 (PHOTOS: 15 great quotes on NSA spying) 
 
 All five review group members are set to publicly promote their plans at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. 
 
 “There are a few big things you really need Congress to do. If you want to change the appointment mechanism for the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] or do any kind of structural reform of the FISC, you need it. If you want to continue the metadata program in some form, but reform it in any way, you need an act of Congress,” said Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution. 
 
 Some technical aspects of the call-tracking program could be achieved through updating mundane regulations the Federal Communications Commission imposes on telephone companies’ retention of billing records. But Obama lacks the power to simply order that body to make such changes. 
 
 The review group’s report hinted at a more cooperative solution, suggesting “it would be in the interests of the [telecom] providers and the government to agree on a voluntary system” to replace the current bulk collection of phone data by the NSA. However, those companies and technology firms are now extremely skittish about appearing in any way to be collaborating with the government on programs at least some Americans and many foreigners regard as a huge violation of privacy. 
 
 Another challenge for Obama will be explaining how such a private-sector-based system would work and why he thinks it’s feasible. Experts who’ve consulted with the NSA on the subject believe it could take one to two years to set up the interconnections that would allow queries of call data held by various companies to ping pong back and forth in a rapid way. 
 
 As a result, many analysts expect Obama to announce plans to move toward keeping the data in the private sector but to be vague about the mechanics — just as the review group was. 
 
 “On 215, he can adopt a direction he wants to go and then it will take time to say how,” former Justice Department attorney Carrie Cordero said. “It would be reasonable for him to hold off on providing details on precisely how the changes will be implemented.” ||||| An analysis of 225 terrorism cases inside the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that the bulk collection of phone records by the National Security Agency “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.” 
 
 In the majority of cases, traditional law enforcement and investigative methods provided the tip or evidence to initiate the case, according to the study by the New America Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group. 
 
 The study, to be released Monday, corroborates the findings of a White House-appointed review group, which said last month that the NSA counterterrorism program “was not essential to preventing attacks” and that much of the evidence it did turn up “could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders.” 
 
 Under the program, the NSA amasses the metadata — records of phone numbers dialed and call lengths and times — of virtually every American. Analysts may search the data only with reasonable suspicion that a number is linked to a terrorist group. The content of calls is not collected. 
 
 The new study comes as President Obama is deliberating over the future of the NSA’s bulk collection program. Since it was disclosed in June, the program has prompted intense debate over its legality, utility and privacy impact. 
 
 Senior administration officials have defended the program as one tool that complements others in building a more complete picture of a terrorist plot or network. And they say it has been valuable in knocking down rumors of a plot and in determining that potential threats against the United States are nonexistent. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. calls that the “peace of mind” metric. 
 
 In an opinion piece published after the release of the review group’s report, Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director and a member of the panel, said the program “needs to be successful only once to be invaluable.” 
 
 The researchers at the New America Foundation found that the program provided evidence to initiate only one case, involving a San Diego cabdriver, Basaaly ­Moalin, who was convicted of sending money to a terrorist group in Somalia. Three co-conspirators were also convicted. The cases involved no threat of attack against the United States. 
 
 “The overall problem for U.S. counterterrorism officials is not that they need vaster amounts of information from the bulk surveillance programs, but that they don’t sufficiently understand or widely share the information they already possess that was derived from conventional law enforcement and intelligence techniques,” said the report, whose principal author is Peter Bergen, director of the foundation’s National Security Program and an expert on terrorism. 
 
 In at least 48 instances, traditional surveillance warrants obtained from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court were used to obtain evidence through intercepts of phone calls and e-mails, said the researchers, whose results are in an online database. 
 
 More than half of the cases were initiated as a result of traditional investigative tools. The most common was a community or family tip to the authorities. Other methods included the use of informants, a suspicious-activity report filed by a business or community member to the FBI, or information turned up in investigations of non-terrorism cases. 
 
 But Richard Clarke, a member of the White House review panel and a former White House counterterrorism adviser, said he thinks the NSA can use traditional methods — such as obtaining a court order — to obtain data as part of counterterrorism investigations. 
 
 “Although we might be safer if the government had ready access to a massive storehouse of information about every detail of our lives, the impact of such a program on the quality of life and on individual freedom would simply be too great,” the group’s report said. 
 
 Said Clarke: “Even if NSA had solved every one of the [terrorist] cases based on” the phone collection, “we would still have proposed the changes.” 
 
 Supporters of the NSA program said it’s important for the agency to maintain the database of phone records so that analysts can query it quickly. One phone company executive concurred that the private sector can’t “mine” records the same way as the NSA because their databases aren’t as comprehensive. 
 
 “So if they call us at 3 o’clock in the morning and said, ‘We got a big issue and we need something in an hour,’ we couldn’t do that,” said the executive, who was not authorized to speak on the record and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But if they say, ‘Give it to us in the next two weeks,’ yes, we could probably do that.” 
 
 According to the New America Foundation, after the NSA shared Moalin’s number with the FBI, the bureau waited two months to begin an investigation and wiretap his phone.
– The NSA's controversial trove of phone metadata "has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism," a new analysis of 225 terrorism cases from the nonprofit New America Foundation has concluded. Most of the cases it looked at were cracked using old-fashioned investigative tools, like tip-offs from family or community members, or the use of informants, the Washington Post reports. Bulk surveillance had "only the most marginal of impacts," helping to initiate at most 1.8% of cases. The government argues that the NSA database allows it to respond rapidly. But in the main case it cites to defend the program—in which a man was convicted of sending money to Somali terrorists—the FBI waited two months to act on the NSA's tip. The report largely backs up President Obama's advisory panel. Obama will announce proposed reforms for the program Friday. But while he could stop the program on his own, he's expected to instead suggest a public-private hybrid program to replace it—which will require always elusive Congressional approval, Politico reports.