From: Ryan Carboni
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/rbml/lehman/pdfs/0279/ld...
"Why was Mr. Hoover opposing a law which would make his own work much easier?"
wow I guess those folks in charge aren't so bad, they they uh, they make their own jobs more difficult, so they really good guys huh My attempt at an explanation is that in 1950, recording technology was quite primitive and expensive, even by 1960's or 1970's standards. Merely listening to a phone call isn't enough; useful surveillance strongly benefits from the ability to record. Imagine the size of the warehouse that would be necessary to physically store, in 1950 technology, the product of 1000 simultaneous wiretaps. So, these people weren't necessarily "good", they simply lacked the technology and money to be "bad". Jim Bell