Quote Originally Posted by Xei View Post
Erm... no? PRISM can't stop people conspiring, or walking into a gun shop.
My point was, that the NSA claims the program is needed to prevent things like this from happening. That if the NSA collects intel on all forms of (electronic) communication, the country will be safe from terrorist activities and other forms of large scale destruction (like this). That's their biggest justification for keeping the program going.

But since it clearly can't manage to do that, does the US government have any real justification for keeping such a program in effect? I'm not saying that this one instance alone proves that the program is useless, but that the government's argument for keeping it going isn't a strong one.