>>In former times there was no technology to spy on a sizeable percentage of all communication. That balance has shifted and needs to be counterbalanced by encryption IMO
>
>Actually, it was easier then to monitor communications then, since just about everything that wasn't spoken went via US Mail or Telegraph.
>Every phone call went through a switchboard which allowed anyone who wanted to to listen in
>My wife (then my girlfriend) told me that some of the letters I sent from overseas had been opened and read by a censor.
>That poor censor must have been bored to death.

Reminds me of a story told to me by a friend in London in the '60s. She called her mother in rural Ireland and got into a argument. Was surprised to hear the operator cut in with 'Don't talk to your mother like that !!' :-}