be overstated. he spoke on fox news this morning. they say we re safer because of the bulk collection of data. turns out everybody that is objective that looked at it, said no episode of terrorism has been prevented, to case has been cracked. many even in the intelligence community are admitting it is very expensive and really hasn t provided that much useful information. reporter: paul said instead of wasting billions of dollars on this metadata collection program we should be funding more fbi agents to tail real terrorism suspects. many of his gop colleagues agree with that sentiment they fear the loss of that metadata program in the interim. here is senator kelly ayote. as i look what is happening around the world right now we mead to make sure we re protecting americans and not going back where we were before 9/11. reporter: senators are expected to pass a house-passed version. bill which would allow the phone companies to store the metadata.
program before the midnight deadline. they have now lost their authority to collect americans phone records in bulk. some say creating a security risk but others disagree saying this is necessary pause in the program. doug mckelway on capitol hill. doug? reporter: the yes of question of how big after miss we re having with the absents of the collection data program keith alexander former head of the national security agency have both said that as many said 54 terrorism plots were thwarted with the help of this bulk data collection program. president obama used a slightly lower figure, 50 terror plots authority third the under questioning general alexander admitted that those numbers were grossly overstated. as many as only one or two plots were thwarted. senator rand paul the chief critic of the nsa in congress said even that number, one or two terrorism plots thwarted may
afghanistan. how will he sell this to the american people? john you heard from lindsey graham, a big focus on national security. you re right, there is sensitivity about being at war or overseas engaged for, at anything if you look at the polls but you also see a growing sense that terrorism and the extremist threat and as lindsey graham mentioned the threat from radical islam specifically is on the rise. and i think he is going to talk about that. he is going to be the candidate who leads the discussion on that on a lot of fronts. peace through strength is a theme you re going to hear from a lost candidates but none more than lindsey graham. i also thought it was interesting, jon he brought up his personal life. his parents dieing when he was in his 20s 15 months from each other. he end up caringing for his