vacuum cleaner spying

Following on from this post. A couple more points.

I dont want to preempt the next interview with Larisa on this spying topic, but in the earlier, now-aborted interview on spying - she suggested that if you listen closely to Tice, he appears to be talking about a very different program than the one that Risen talks about. Again from demnow:

RUSSELL TICE: ... remember, I can't tell you what I know of how N.S.A. does its business, but I can use the wiggle words like “if” ...
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So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been used... And I think that’s something Congress needs to address. They need to find out exactly how this system was operated and ultimately determine whether this was indeed a very focused effort or whether this was a vacuum cleaner-type scenario.
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It's just -- there's just too many variables out there that we don't know yet. And, ultimately, I think Congress needs to find out those answers. If the President was fed a bill of goods in this matter, then that's something that has to be addressed. Or if the President himself knew every aspect of what’s going on, if this was some sort of vacuum cleaner deal, then it is ultimately, I would think, the President himself that needs to be held responsible for what’s going on here.
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Well, you know, it’s certainly not up to me, but I've heard all of the talk about impeachment and that sort of thing... It’s not up to me, but if the President knew, if this was a vacuum cleaner job and the President knew exactly what was going on -- and ultimately what we're hearing now is nothing but a cover-up and a whitewash -- and we find that to be the case, then I think it should cause some dire consequences for even the President of the United States, if he indeed did know exactly what was going on and if it was a very large-scale, you know, suck-up-everything kind of operation.

Can we infer that this is "a very large-scale, you know, suck-up-everything kind of operation"? We can, indeed.

As Glenn Greenwald has amply demonstrated, and Abu Gonzales basically acknowledged in his "I'm sorry I lied, I had my fingers crossed under the desk" memo, when PreznitBlinky says:

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I can say that if somebody from al-Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America. And I repeat: limited. And it’s limited to calls from outside the United States to calls within the United States. But, they are of known numbers of known al Qaeda members or affiliates.

He is effectively, intentionally, lying - because he is only referring to one particular program - it depends what the definition of 'this' is...

There was one other weird moment in the interview:

AMY GOODMAN: What made you decide to come forward? You worked for the top-secret agency of this government, one that is far larger and even more secret than the C.I.A.

RUSSELL TICE: Well, the main reason is, you know, I'm involved with some certain aspects of the intelligence community, which are very closely held, and I believe I have seen some things that are illegal. Ultimately it's Congress's responsibility to conduct oversight in these things. I don't see it happening. Another reason is there was a certain roadblock that was sort of lifted that allowed me to do this, and I can't explain, but I will to Congress if allowed to.

I wonder what he's talking about. What could that possibly be?