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" that system hasn’t netted or stopped even one terrorist or terrorist attack"

I believe your statement is a complete overstatement of how intelligence actually works. I'll use the killing of Bin Laden as an example. There were literally thousands of bits and pieces of information that were used to finally find and kill him. Look at how the identity of his courier was found which ultimately led to finding Bin Laden. It was "electronics and phone tracking" that led to the courier, along with a highly skilled and dedicated intelligence community. Intelligence is usually not a single smoking gun, but rather a lot of information, hard work and dedication.

Intelligence is usually not a single smoking gun, but rather a lot of information, hard work and dedication.

Intelligence is slow, patient, and takes a lot of little puzzle pieces. Metadata can be very useful in putting together a puzzle piece here, 2 over there, another piece here. The link below explains a little bit very well. That said, there's still no reason the NSA should be allowed to do what they've been doing, without a warrant. For a particular person and describing the data. Their program is fully unConstitutional, but could theoretically be very useful.

Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere