Recensione del libro di Brian Hochman, "THE LISTENERS -
A History of WIRETAPPING in the UNITED STATES", Harvard University Press, marzo 2022,
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674249288.

Qui una intervista del 2018, quando Hochman stava lavorando al libro:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-surveillance-america-180968399/

Molto interessante!

jc

Andrew Lanham/April 21, 2022

The Making of the Surveillance State
The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?

In 1911, a self-promoting private detective named William Burns made national headlines. He had broken open a major political corruption case, using a powerful new technology: an electronic bug. A business group had hired him to investigate the Ohio state legislature. So he had two of his agents plant a dictograph—a telephonic device invented in 1905 as an office intercom—under a couch at a hotel in Cincinnati. Another agent then posed as a businessman, invited dozens of legislators to the hotel, and offered them bribes. As lawmakers agreed to the deals, the dictograph carried their conversation to the room next door, where a stenographer wrote it all down. It led to multiple criminal convictions. And Burns became a celebrity: Bars started serving “dictograph cocktails” in his honor, while Burns produced a play about his own exploits and even starred as himself in a silent film. The age of electronic listening had arrived.

[...]

continua qui: https://newrepublic.com/article/166145/surveillance-state-listeners-wiretapping-book-review