by Deb Cupples | The photograph is of the Watergate Complex in Washington, DC. That's where
the Democratic party's office was in 1972, when five men connected to the Nixon Administration got caught breaking into the DNC's office and attempting to tap phones. When I think of potential for abuse, I cannot help thinking of the Watergate scandal.
What brought potential for abuse to mind? An August 2008 court opinion that just became declassified (albeit with some text redacted): an opinion that seems to allow our government broad powers to tap Americans' phones and gather our emails without first getting a warrant.
If current technology had existed in the '70s, Nixon Administration officials wouldn't have been forced to employ such risky, easy-to-discover methods of spying on political enemies -- and Nixon might never have been forced to resign.
About the court opinion, the New York Times reports: