Of course we have Bush and Cheney assertions, and the able defense of the local conservatives.

Looks like there are many sources who question the value, or further, deplore the resources sponged up by useless leads.

Quite a few sources quoted in this piece. A sampling...

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

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Some officials said that in both cases, they had already learned of the plans through interrogation of prisoners or other means.

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But in bureau field offices, the N.S.A. material continued to be viewed as unproductive, prompting agents to joke that a new bunch of tips meant more "calls to Pizza Hut," one official, who supervised field agents, said.

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"It affected the F.B.I. in the sense that they had to devote so many resources to tracking every single one of these leads, and, in my experience, they were all dry leads," the former senior prosecutor said. "A trained investigator never would have devoted the resources to take those leads to the next level, but after 9/11, you had to."