Here's all I'm hearing-
ACLU: Wah wah wah wah waaah
While government monitoring is a serious issue, America's security agencies are still far more regulated than France or England's in terms of eavesdropping, arrests, etc... I suppose this is because America has only had limited (before 9/11) contact with Terrorism, whereas England had the IRA and France the.. well, everyone hates the french.
Either way, I agree with Rubberneck that this is not big news. It is and deserves to be, however, news in that the American public deserves to be kept informed of regulation of their civil liberties.
JMO,
Solid