The listeners : a history of wiretapping in the United States / Brian Hochman.

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Title:

The listeners : a history of wiretapping in the United States / Brian Hochman.

Author:

Hochman, Brian, 1980- author.

ISBN:

9780674249288

Physical Description:

360 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Contents:

Introduction: The ballad of D. C. Williams -- Part one: Dirty business. Stolen signals and whispering wires -- Detective Burns goes to Washington -- To intercept and divulge -- The wiretapper's nest -- Part two: The bug in the martini olive. Eavesdroppers -- Tapping God's telephone -- Part three: The listening age. Title III -- Big brother, where art thou? -- Limited assistance necessary -- Off the wire -- Epilogue: King's call, Hoover's tap.

Abstract:

"Wiretapping is nearly as old as electronic communications. Telegraph operators intercepted enemy messages during the Civil War. Law enforcement agencies were listening to private telephone calls as early as 1895. Communications firms have assisted government eavesdropping programs since the early twentieth century--and they have spied on their own customers too. Such breaches of privacy once provoked outrage, but today most Americans have resigned themselves to constant electronic monitoring. How did we get from there to here? In The Listeners, Brian Hochman shows how the wiretap evolved from a specialized intelligence-gathering tool to a mundane fact of life. He explores the origins of wiretapping in military campaigns and criminal confidence games and tracks the use of telephone taps in the United States government's wars on alcohol, communism, terrorism, and crime. While high-profile eavesdropping scandals fueled public debates about national security, crime control, and the rights and liberties of individuals, wiretapping became a routine surveillance tactic for private businesses and police agencies alike. From wayward lovers to foreign spies, from private detectives to public officials, and from the silver screen to the Supreme Court, The Listeners traces the long and surprising history of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping in the United States. Along the way, Hochman considers how earlier generations of Americans confronted threats to privacy that now seem more urgent than ever."-- Provided by publisher

Subject Term:

Wiretapping -- United States -- History.

Electronic surveillance -- United States -- History.

Écoute électronique -- États-Unis -- Histoire.

Surveillance électronique -- États-Unis -- Histoire.

Electronic surveillance. (OCoLC)fst00907477

Wiretapping. (OCoLC)fst01176227

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.

Geographic Term:

United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155

Genre:

History. (OCoLC)fst01411628

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Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Adult Nonfiction Book Hardback	120791003026575	363.25 HOC	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

They've been listening for longer than you think. A new history reveals how--and why.

Wiretapping is nearly as old as electronic communications. Telegraph operators intercepted enemy messages during the Civil War. Law enforcement agencies were listening to private telephone calls as early as 1895. Communications firms have assisted government eavesdropping programs since the early twentieth century--and they have spied on their own customers too. Such breaches of privacy once provoked outrage, but today most Americans have resigned themselves to constant electronic monitoring. How did we get from there to here?

In The Listeners , Brian Hochman shows how the wiretap evolved from a specialized intelligence-gathering tool to a mundane fact of life. He explores the origins of wiretapping in military campaigns and criminal confidence games and tracks the use of telephone taps in the US government's wars on alcohol, communism, terrorism, and crime. While high-profile eavesdropping scandals fueled public debates about national security, crime control, and the rights and liberties of individuals, wiretapping became a routine surveillance tactic for private businesses and police agencies alike.

From wayward lovers to foreign spies, from private detectives to public officials, and from the silver screen to the Supreme Court, The Listeners traces the long and surprising history of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping in the United States. Along the way, Brian Hochman considers how earlier generations of Americans confronted threats to privacy that now seem more urgent than ever.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Georgetown University English professor Hochman (Savage Preservation) explores in this fascinating history how wiretapping by U.S. law enforcement agencies went from a "dirty business" to a "standard investigative tactic." Meticulously combing through Supreme Court opinions, trial transcripts, and even pulp fiction, Hochman traces how political, corporate, and popular opinions of wiretapping evolved from the invention of the telegraph in the mid--19th century through the war on drugs in the 1990s, when Congress passed legislation requiring phone companies "to build technical surveillance capacities" into their networks and granting law enforcement access to call location data. Contending that today's "regime of ubiquitous backdoor surveillance" wasn't inevitable, Hochman notes a major shift in the late 1960s when civil rights protests and racial uprisings in the Watts neighborhood of L.A.; Newark, N.J.; and other U.S. cities sparked a conservative backlash that led to the implementation of "repressive law enforcement policies," including wiretapping, aimed largely at communities of color. Hochman lucidly explains complex legal matters and fills the book with such intriguing yet little-known characters as Jim Vaus, an LAPD wiretapper turned Christian evangelist, who shot to fame with tales of his "bugging exploits" in the 1950s. This is an essential and immersive look at "what happens when we sideline privacy concerns in the interest of profit motives and police imperatives." (Feb.)

Kirkus Review

A study of how electronic surveillance became an accepted tool of law enforcement and a pervasive feature of everyday life. Hochman, the director of American Studies at Georgetown, traces the origins of wiretapping to the Civil War, when spies on both sides learned to intercept the enemy's telegraph messages. The war hadn't even ended before D.C. Williams, a California commodities trader, was tapping into competitors' telegrams to make lucrative trades. Soon, wiretaps were a standard weapon in the scam artist's repertoire, notably in getting inside information on gambling results. With the arrival of the telephone, crooks learned to exploit the new medium, especially for blackmail purposes. Law enforcement didn't lag far behind: New York City detectives were tapping phones as early as 1895. Hochman examines critical court cases establishing the status of wiretap evidence. A significant precedent was a 1928 case in which the Supreme Court sanctioned Prohibition agents' use of wiretaps to convict a bootlegger. Congress tried to reverse the precedent a few years later, with the Federal Communications Act, making it illegal to intercept and divulge the contents of an electronic communication. In 1940, a secret memo by Franklin Roosevelt allowed federal wiretaps in national security cases, a decision that pleased the FBI. But in 1950, Judge Learned Hand threw out a conviction in an espionage case built largely on wiretap evidence, and the issue went back to Congress. By the 1960s, the FBI was bugging a long roster of suspected radicals, from Malcolm X to Benjamin Spock, and Nixon was recording White House conversations. The author follows the trends into the computer age, with Congress opening the gates to almost universal spying with the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Amply documented, occasionally dry, this is a solid study of the legal and technical evolution of electronic spying. A thorough history of wiretapping as it moved from a criminal act to a legitimate tool of law enforcement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Introduction: The Ballad of D. C. Williams	p. 1
Part 1 Dirty Business
1 Stolen Signals and Whispering Wires	p. 29
2 Detective Burns Goes to Washington	p. 54
3 To Intercept and Divulge	p. 76
4 The Wiretapper's Nest	p. 98
Part 2 The Bug in the Martini Olive
5 Eavesdroppers	p. 119
6 Tapping God's Telephone	p. 139
Part 3 The Listening Age
7 Title III	p. 173
8 Big Brother, Where Art Thou?	p. 201
9 Limited Assistance Necessary	p. 220
10 Off the Wire	p. 241
Epilogue: King's Gall, Hoover's Tap	p. 275
Notes	p. 285
Acknowledgments	p. 339
Index	p. 343

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

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