"HeyBub" wrote in message
...

Who figured the feds shouldn't need a court order to listen to your
phone calls or read your e-mails?

Governments have been monitoring enemy electronic communications since the
Recent Unplesantness when both Union and Confederate forces tapped the
telegraph lines of their opposition. Early on, we broke the Japanese
"Purple Code," and the British did the same with the "Enigma" project on
German codes.

Those who dismiss this project harken back to the day when the Secretary
of State said: "Gentelmen do not read each others mail" as he closed the
State Department's codebreaking office.

What part of the difference between "enemy" and "American citizen" is too
complicated for you?

The way it used to work was if the cops wanted to tap your phone or read
your mail they had to convince a judge to sign off on it. There was even a
special court where they could go if it was a national security issue that
couldn't be discussed in open court. Now, they just send your ISP a
Security Letter and the ISP rolls over, no need to wake up a judge and
explain why they want to spy on a citizen on his native soil. And you
figure that's a good thing?

To his discredit, Obama opposed this while running for office and said he
would end the practice. Not only has he not done so, he apparently proposed
to expand the practice--just one of many reasons I am disappointed in the
the Obama administration.