NAS spying started before 9/11?

There is a new allegation in one of the breach of privacy cases claiming that Bush began the NSA spying program BEFORE the 9/11 attacks:

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.

If this allegation is correct, it seems to me to be a really big deal. Whatever thin reed of justification Bush may have claimed for implementing this program after 9/11 completely disappears if it was implemented before 9/11. After all, even Bush's Article II claim to supreme authority as Commander-in-Chief at time of war fails completely if the program was started before 9/11, since nobody claimed we were at war then. If the allegation is true, then Bush is certainly a deliberate, pre-meditated criminal without even having the excuse of holding a mistaken view of his constitutional powers that made him think his actions were legal.