There has been monitoring as long as there have been methods to monitor.

In the US at least the arrangement used to be that the monitoring wasn't sanctioned, wasn't really admissible for much outside the intelligence community and therefore was done in secret, and the information gained was only used when it was worth tipping your hand.

We pretty much screwed that up with the last administration allowing the programs to continue after they were well known.

As dumb as it sounds at first pass a whole bunch of false outrage while funding the replacement program in secret is probably exactly what we need right now.