Just who were Bush/Cheney/Rove spying on, really?

From WaPo:

"Extraordinary and inappropriate" secrecy about a warrantless eavesdropping program undermined its effectiveness as a terrorism-fighting tool, government watchdogs have concluded in the first examination of one of the most contentious episodes of the Bush administration.

A report by inspectors general from five intelligence agencies said the administration's tight control over who learned of the program also contributed to flawed legal arguments that nearly prompted mass resignations in the Justice Department five years ago.

The program "may have" contributed to successful counterterrorism efforts, some intelligence officials told the investigators. But too few CIA personnel knew of the highly classified program to use it for intelligence work, the report stated, while at the FBI, the program "played a limited role," with "most . . . leads . . . determined not to have any connection to terrorism."

So much for the war on terror meme. Now let's ask some serious questions:

1. Why create a massive domestic spying program if not to use it for fighting terrorism? What is its real purpose?
2. What did the "leads" have a connection to?
3. Given what they have already done, what would officials of the Bush admin do with such a powerful tool?

Now some other things to consider:

1. Karl Rove had the highest security clearances. Was he aware of this program? If so, why? His role was political after all.
2. During the Nixon Watergate crimes (of which Rove was a part), massive political spying and blackmail took place.
3. Why has Congress been so compliant, with members going as far as as to ruin their own careers in order to assist the Bush White House?
4. Did Dick Cheney pull a Hoover and keep a stash of "control files" in that man-sized safe of his?
5. Did Bush so fear political dissent that he initiated a COINTELPRO operation using this system of domestic spying?

There are only three reasons why a system of domestic spying - having nothing to do with counterterrorism - would be created and used on this level.

• To cover up something already done for fear of the public finding out (who is talking about something, who is writing about something, who is investigating something? etc.). Conversely, to cover up something after the fact.
• To control individuals through blackmail (need an investigation killed, need a vote from Congress, need a judge to play ball? etc.)
• To profit from information known to only a handful of people (corporate deals, etc.). Also to sell information on the intel black-market.

I have long suspected that members of Congress were blackmailed by the Bush cabal. I would also wager that foreign leaders were likely also blackmailed, some into joining the war on terror game.

I have one other question of importance that should be considered. Was the spying system a strictly one way mechanism? In other words, was this a collection tool or did the system actually interact in some way? Let me give you an example of what I mean. Was part of this operation used to simply monitor and collect cell phone data, usage and such? Or were some phones at some particular time actually jammed? Was email simply collected or were servers actually flooded in order to crash them? Is this a one way system or a two way system?

Thoughts?