Redesigning Wiretapping: The Digitization of Communications Interception

This book tells the story of government-sponsored wiretapping in Britain and the United States from the rise of telephony in the 1870s until the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

It pays particular attention to the 1990s, which marked one of the most dramatic turns in the history of telecommunications interception. During that time, fiber optic and satellite networks rapidly replaced the copper-based analogue telephone system that had remained virtually unchanged since the 1870s. That remarkable ...