NSA listening in on US - is that really new?

Big Brother is listening:

"ROSS COULTHART, REPORTER:
Far above in the empty vacuum of space, the scientists will tell you, nothing can be heard. But in fact Australia is hearing a lot from the void 36,000km above the earth. We are part of the world's most sophisticated spy network. A member of the planet's most exclusive club - UKUSA - a secret alliance that began in the embers of World War II. As you'll see today, that alliance has spawned a worrying grandchild. It is known as Echelon."

I bring this up to put some perspective on the current tempest in the Beltway teapot - the NYT "revelation" that the super secret National Security Agency (NSA, aka No Such Agency) has been spying on US citizens without those annoying FISA warrants since 9/11. According to numerous press reports in other countries, but mostly relegated to the net in the US, spying on our citizens has been going on for a long time.

Some of these stories indicate that the joint electronic intel operation known as Echelon led by the US and including the UK, Australia and New Zealand gets around member countries legal quibbles about spying on their own citizens by the pretense that whatever they learn about their own citizens came by way of their partners and not their own efforts.