Some critics of the US national security wiretapping system – pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) – may not realize how much more stringent the standards for securing a wiretap have become since the tenure of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
I recently read Curt Gentry’s J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (1991), and found myself aghast at the abandon with which Hoover wiretapped the American populace. The NSA warrantless wiretapping program utilized by President Bush was dwarfed by Hoover’s exploits –both in method and scale. (more…)
