Saying the NSA's Mass Surveillance programs have anything to do with counter terrorism is an obvious and blatant lie

The NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are extremely ineffective at stopping terrorist plots - see Boston.

They are VERY effective at building a surveillance dossier on EVERY American to suppress any future political dissent - see Stasi.

The NSA has still been unable to cite a single case of foiling a terrorist plot, that could not of been foiled by obtaining a warrant after finding probable cause.

The terrorists and Islamic Extremists have known for many years that the US is monitoring and collecting all phone traffic.

In places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen the Islamists have switched to using walkie-talkies - NOT mobile phones.

If for any reason they do have to make a phone call about operations, like Bin Laden they will use a courier to make the call at least 100 miles away from their base of operations and be careful to avoid the code words that might alert the NSA.
Lists of code words the NSA monitors for, are widely available on the net.

Similarly the Islamic Extremists in America or Europe use anonymous Pay as You Go phones and change them every 2 or 3 months, to avoid detection and any history being collected by the NSA.

All of the Islamists know that all regular internet communications are being monitored - so they don't use them if they don't want the NSA to find out.
They use specialist sites that are not indexed by Google etc.

ALL of the data collection and phone monitoring performed by the NSA is totally ineffective against terrorists  and Islamic Extremists. They already knew about the Mass Surveillance programs - at least from 2005/2006.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/us-surveillance-is-not-aimed-at.html

The only thing the NSA Mass Surveillance programs are effective for is to build a surveillance dossier on all LAW ABIDING citizens.
The NSA are collecting as much data on everyone as possible.
The purpose of which is for future blackmail and intimidation on political dissidents or people the government wants to control.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-nsa-mass-surveillance-scandal-story.html

The NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are an existential threat to democracy in America.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-existential-threat-to-american.html

Together with the other abuses of civil rights all the infrastructure is now in place for an authoritarian Fascist Police State in America.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/all-infrastructure-tyrant-would-need.html

All law abiding citizens are also being monitored in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well - so it's a threat to democracy in those countries too.
These five countries all share the spy data collected with each other, to get around any privacy rules on spying on their own citizens.
The program is called Five Eyes.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/how-to-avoid-political-backlash-from.html

Germany and France are also spying on their own law abiding citizens, but to a lesser extent.
NSA scandal - the Agency is out of control | James Bamford
http://dw.de/p/191FO

N.B. Organized criminals also know about all the Mass Surveillance programs too and will take steps to avoid them, so the authorities are not going to pick up anything useful on them either, by using dragnet surveillance programs.

Update 07/07

John Roberts is the unaccountable chief justice of the surveillance state.
He appoints all of the FISA judges with no oversight from Congress
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/did-you-know-john-roberts-is-also-chief.html

Update 08/07

Obama's catalog of civil rights abuses
Obama's Catalog of Civil Rights Abuses and preparations for massive civil unrest 
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/11/obamas-civil-rights-violations.html

Update 08/16 
John C. Inglis Deputy Director of the NSA effectively calls his boss Keith Alexander a liar in sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee

SPENCER ACKERMAN: What you heard was extraordinary. You heard the deputy director of theNSA say two things simultaneously—first, that the bulk phone records collection that’s gone on for at least seven years of all Americans’ phone records—hundreds of million, yours, mine, everyone’s, your neighbors’, your family members’—has in maybe one case—maybe—stopped a terrorist attack, maybe, at absolute most. And he also said—and this is the subtler thing that’s easier to miss but is very important to link with yesterday’s documents disclosure—he said that was the wrong way to view the program, that it wasn’t a sort of, as he put it, "but for" instance of actually directly stopping a plot. That’s not really the right way to view it, he said. 

 http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/1/nsa_confirms_dragnet_phone_records_collection

Chief FISA judge "We have no way to verify NSA’s self-reporting." 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-ability-to-police-us-spying-program-limited/2013/08/15/4a8c8c44-05cd-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html 

So it's confirmed - the NSA can say whatever they like. 
Nobody can check up on the truth or otherwise of what they tell the FISA Court.