NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says

It is a waste of time oif they are really looking for terrorists.

If they are wanting to spy on peace activists, non-lapdog reporters and political 'enemies,' it may not be such a waste of time.

Defense Tech: NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says:

"It'd be one thing if the NSA's massive sweep of our phone records was actually helping catch terrorists. But what if it's not working at all? A leading practitioner of the kind of analysis the NSA is supposedly performing in this surveillance program says that 'it's a waste of time, a waste of resources. And it lets the real terrorists run free.'

Re-reading the USA Today piece, one paragraph jumped out:
This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for 'social network analysis,' the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together."