That's a ridiculous comparison. For one, the courts didn't find everyone who was surveilled guilty of something for which surveillance was a sentence, and government actions are justified by law, not fiat. For another, your choice of murder is unnecessarily extreme and emotional. A better comparison would be opening someone's mail. It is illegal for someone to open someone else's USPS mail, but the NSA thinks it's not a big deal to open everyone's mail and construct a big chart of who knows who and what they talk about. Given that no one under surveillance has been convicted of anything, running a program of that audacity and scale is not what a government "Of the People" should be doing. In previous times of war, we have said that governments who do that should be removed.

Ridiculous might be a tad strong don't you think.

I think most people are well aware and in agreement with the fact that the government not only have but should have a much broader scope to work within.

The question is how far that scope should be stretched.