I feel like the entire world has gone insane, and every boundary is being pushed to its limits ... and then pushed beyond those limits. Where does this end?
Echelon dates to the late 1960s.
COINTELPRO went on for two decades starting from 1956.
Privacy and rights abuses have been rampant among the three letter agencies since their originations. Today, they can scale the privacy invasion. That's the sole difference from their side. Previously they'd just violate someone's rights and go about their business, good luck proving it or fighting it at a small scale as a specific target of one of these agencies.
The list of rationalized extensions of the US Government into what becomes in retrospect a blatant abuse of power would be an interesting one.
Watergate was a quaint bespoke little operation. Much wider unconstrained eavesdropping capability is available to grunts like Snowden on tap. And all the perpetrators were indicted or jailed[0]. A president even was made to resign.
If anything, the magnitude of the threat the Un-American Activities Committee dealt with, and the constrains Nixon faced (both technical during, and legal after the fact) provide a contrast to the post-PATRIOT-Act reality of threats and constrains, all imaginary at best.
[0] http://watergate.info/analysis/casualties-and-convictions
you must be kidding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines
In the current era, the targets are often domestic and they're willing to compromise U.S. companies on a large scale to do it.
I'm sorry to say it, but I read this and think "plausible deniability for future-Apple when they open the (back) doors".