[Tarpon]

I don't know if Clinton did the same thing, what Clinton did was set up the system which allowed the NSA to spy. It includes hooks into the hardware of telephone central offices, Internet ISPs and satellite stations worldwide for intercepts. This was written about in the technical press as far back as 1999. Some background information from 2000 is here.

The FBI has a similar system called Carnivore.

Congress has been funding both systems, so the feigned surprise is interesting.

What is new, and damaging, is the disclosure that these systems are being used to track terrorists. For disclosing this, people need to go to jail. Makes the Plame affair look ridiculous by comparison.

[singfreedom]

Absolutely. To have nebulous info floating around in the ether is one thing, it is entirely another to have a MSM "newspaper" printing this stuff on the front page. (Note: I use the term "newspaper" loosely in this instance.)

Clinton and his Commerce Secretary, Brown, were, allegedly, using the info gleaned from spying to bribe American companies for their support. It is a very serious charge, but far more nefarious than Bush using the system to protect us.