An extremely clear cut refutation of the need for domestic surveillance from Rep. Rush Holt:

a majority of members of Congress suspected in the days after September 11, 2001, that there were terrorist cells in every city in America. We’d just heard there were hijackers in Florida and Maine and in Newark, and it made it sound as if they were everywhere. That they had infiltrated our society in every state and county. That turns out not to be true. But there was this rampant fear in Congress that that was happening. And there was a real over-reaction.