Disorder in the Court

Disorder in the Court by David Tell, for the Editors
Since shortly after September 11, 2001 - and under the terms of a formal order signed by the president of the United States sometime early the following year-the Pentagon's giant signals - intelligence division, the National Security Agency, has monitored "the international telephone calls and international email messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants." So reported the New York Times more than a week ago. Official Washington is appalled.
Sounds like it would have been a really, really good idea for NSA to have gone ahead and done this stuff back before 9/11. So why is it such an atrocity that President Bush has them doing it now?