Do a google search for Carnivore ( http://epic.org/privacy/carnivore/ ) and Echelon ( http://fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm )
Your phone calls and email were being monitored long before the Patriot act.
Carnivore is significantly less advanced than you'd think. It was a Solaris box that sat at your ISP when the feds got a warrant on ya. Compared to freeware software like Wireshark, it sucked. Now it's the responsibility of telcos to provide such capabilities at their own expense, due to CALEA.
Anywho, the real point of the original illegal wiretapping by Bush and the later 2008 Amendments to FISA by Obama was to protect Americans against terrorists. It's a nice meme, but one that falls apart in short order. FISA courts turned down approximately 12 or so warrants in over a decade. They were a rubber stamp, but with one valid purpose. Records. If certain folks were using FISA for revenge, personal gain, malicious persecution, etc, there would be proof that it occured.
The point of the illegal wiretapping, and it's quasi legalization, was to prevent records from being kept so future law suits or government prosecution could not be successful.
