As a software engineer and fan of Tom Clancy novels, I find this fascinating. As an American who would like to be able to do business with people outside the country, I find this worrisome. This type of thing will increase the distrust of Americans (while this occurred in the UK, it was done in conjunction with the NSA). It paints us as diabolical geniuses running around spying on everyone and everything. Many international companies may decide that buying technology or related services from American companies simply isn't worth the risk that there will be some kind of monitoring going on.