When the Government Is Listening

When did government wiretapping begin?

As soon as the use of telephones became widespread, in the 1920s. J. Edgar Hoover, the newly named head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was the first to make use of wiretaps and bugs (planted listening devices), targeting bootleggers during Prohibition. At the time, several states had outlawed wiretaps, but there was no federal law against them. The U.S. Supreme Court said the wiretaps and bugs were constitutional as long as agents didn

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