re: connection
From the very first NYT story on this:
Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches. What appeared to be another Qaeda plot, involving fertilizer bomb attacks on British pubs and train stations, was exposed last year in part through the program, the officials said.
The bridge plot, which was discarded by the terrorists, has been ridiculed. Nobody mentions their alternate plans of using hydraulic tools to derail trains.
Also, another "flap" that has come up is defense attorneys claiming their clients were nailed by this system. One assumes that somebody has been apprehended by it.