I've argued on this forum that the NSA's spying program was really a "maturation" of Echelon's capabilities.
Remember "kill Echelon day" back in 1998'ish? That was the day every internet user was supposed to include the 200 or so words/phrases that would trigger Echelon to archive and read their email. The purpose was to overwhelm Echelon and bring it down.
IMO, all this NSA stuff really is an expansion of Echelon's capabilities with more countries like Germany, UK, Spain, Italy etc.. signing-on to spy on their own citizens as well.
BTW: Merkel's protestations last week that she was "spied on" are laughable. Germany's "benefitted" from the NSA programs also --- they spy on their own citizens also so her faux outrage doesn't fly with me.
Back when I knew someone at NSA they told me Echelon had the capability of monitoring over 90,000 overseas phone calls at a ime and that was back in the early 90’s! No telling how many now. Probably truly mind boggling...