Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque does the wingnut analysis so the wingnut analysts don't have to:

The Leader has explained to us over and over, very patiently, that anything He decides to do is legal - because He decides to it! So there's no point in getting into a hissy fit over the so-called illegality of wholesale spying without warrants, indefinite detention without charges, torture and rendition, concentration camps, extrajudicial killing, wars of aggression or anything else the Great Decider decides to decide.

Floyd points out that these latest revelations are very much in-line with the existing Echelon project:

A 1999 report by the European Parliament laid bare the lineaments of the program, which has been carried out on a global basis since the end of World War II by the English-speaking powers of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Decade after decade, every new communication technology has been gathered into the Echelon net. (The program, a closely guarded secret for decades, was confirmed by Australia's Defence Signals Directorate chief in 1999.) The Anglophone spy guys not only use an interlocked, international system of satellite interception stations, they have even planted interception nodes on deep-sea communication cables, the Euro Parliament report found, adding that "The stations collectively monitor millions of voice and data messages each day. These messages are then scanned and checked" for any "key words" the spooks are told to look for: "bomb," "terrorist," "Rosebud," whatever. And since the program was completely covert, no one has any idea who the hell that Echelon is really looking at. Could be international calls and e-mails; could be completely domestic communications; could be any damn thing and any damn body they please.