And now a warning on phone tapping?

UPDATE U.S. Spying On Angela Merkel's Phone May Date Back To 2002: Report
Reuters
Posted: 10/26/2013

BERLIN, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The United States may have bugged Angela Merkel's phone for more than 10 years, according to a news report on Saturday that also said President Barack Obama told the German leader he would have stopped it happening had he known about it.

Germany's outrage over reports of bugging of Merkel's phone by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) prompted it to summon the U.S. ambassador this week for the first time in living memory, an unprecedented post-war diplomatic rift.

Der Spiegel said Merkel's mobile telephone had been listed by the NSA's Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002 - marked as "GE Chancellor Merkel" - and was still on the list weeks before Obama visited Berlin in June.
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How does the press do it? How do they manage to make a big deal out of something they used to pay attention to then forgot all about?

The latest is the phone tapping of leaders of other nations, as if any of this is new.
At least he was paying attention,

NSA Spying Scandal: 2006 or 2013?
National Journal
By Matt Vasilogambros
June 6, 2013

This isn't the first time that the National Security Agency has come under scrutiny for securing the phone records of millions of Americans.

Since George W. Bush started the so-called war on terror, and Congress subsequently passed the Patriot Act, the federal government has found ways of fighting terrorism through surveillance that some would call intrusive—from looking through library records to tapping phone calls.

If you look through stories from today and compare them to, for example, a story from 2006 when the NSA found itself in a firestorm of public outrage for collecting phone records, it's difficult to tell the two apart.

So, try to identify whether the following excerpts are from this week's Guardian's story and its fallout, or a scoop from USA Today in May 2006.
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Here are some more
2006
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

NSA Wire Tapping Program Revealed

An article in Thursday's USA Today reported that three of the largest U.S. phone companies have been providing the National Security Agency with phone records from millions of Americans since 9/11. Two senators discuss the program's legal and security issues now that the public is aware of it.

Can we stop pretending this is all new now?